Interwil and Quality Beverages Sponsor Holiday Workshops for Cape Flats Learners

by Alexander McLeod on 04/10/12 at 4:26 pm
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I recently published an article on Ideate appealing to our readers to sponsor 10 learners from a school on the Cape Flats to attend a one Introduction to Entrepreneurship Workshop. The response was not great but that did not deter me from wanting to run these workshops.

After knocking on doors, cold calling and being resilient, as us entrepreneurs are, I managed to secure funding for 20 learners from Belgravia High School and South Peninsula High School. Interwil and Quality Beverages generously agreed to sponsor the two workshops. In addition to this, the Headmaster of South Peninsula High School agreed to sponsor an additional 23 learners from his school. All in all, 43 learners attended the workshops across two days.

These workshops were held on the 2nd and 3rd of October at Groote Schuur High School. The day comprised of 4 sessions:

1 – An Introduction to Entrepreneurship: mindsets, behaviours and what is it all about ?
2 – Innovation Workshop facilitated by Charles Maisel
3 – Introduction to Marketing Workshop
4 – Guest Speaker: 14 year old Jesse Blignaut, a Gr8 learners from St Josephs College, spoke to the learners about the current 6 Month School Entrepreneurship Programme he is completing as well as his business, Me2You Advertising, which he started up within 2 months of commencing with the Water Berry School Entrepreneurship Programme

All in all it was a great day. Learners were interacting, learning, but more importantly, realising that it is possible to start up a micro-business while still at high school. Needless to say, I was inundated with questions and feedback at the end of each day with learners telling me what businesses they wanted to and are now going to start up.

I will be running 3 more of these workshops during November. My business, Water Berry, has been included as a Stakeholder in Cape Town Entrepreneurship Week. I want to be an active stakeholder and as a result, I will be attempting to run 3 one day workshops on 3 different Saturdays in November. How many learners do I want at each session ? 100 – yes, 100 ! 300 learners, in 3 days, being taken through a workshop that will inspire them to want to start their own micro-businesses. It is possible people.

If you would like to be part of this Cape Town Entrepreneurship Week initiative, please feel free to make contact with me.

Let’s foster entrepreneurial thinking!

Alexander McLeod is passionate about fostering entrepreneurship in South Africa. He has developed and is currently implementing independent School Entrepreneurship Programmes. As at 31 July 2012, he has had just over 100 learners from 6 different High Schools register for his programme. Alexander has just over 8 years experience in professional services having worked as a management consultant and project manager at reputable organisations such as Deloitte and Business Innovation Group. He has been running his own business, Water Berry, for about 2 years and has a core focus on entrepreneurial development. He is passionate about education and giving people the opportunity to live their dreams. View more articles by Alexander McLeod.

Tags: learners, School Entrepreneurship

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