Micro-business & Entrepreneur Activation - Phetoho

Since our last report in September we have run two training courses in two of the communities that we operate in. The courses were delivered in the languages of the attendees (SeSotho, Swahili, French, and English!). Every week our Community Reps hold a sales day of clothes, and the 40 newly trained entrepreneurs have been putting their learning into practice over the past two months. The clothes are sold to the entrepreneurs at below market prices. They then sell them on to the customer bases that they are building for their new micro-enterprises, with a profit margin added.

We now work with three established community entrepreneurs who are successfully selling at scale to make a reliable income from their business – we look forward to sharing some of those stories in the future.

Names and numbers of interested community members have come flooding in and are at triple figures. All of them form part of our broad community network, and have become known to us through the community mobilisation model that Future Families adopts to empower families to create their own future. Through this model we keep in at least fortnightly contact with all of the clients that we work with, and regularly monitor individual progress.

We are very excited about the progress of this project and ever grateful for your support, which has enabled this good progress. But we are growing our clothing micro-business project cautiously, so that we can focus on our impact at the same time as building our social enterprise portfolio for our own future sustainability. In this way your support is twofold – you help us reach disempowered individuals, and offer them opportunities to change their own futures, and you support the success of our early social enterprise activities that we believe hold the key to our future sustainability strategy.

We have learned so much from the two courses and 40 entrepreneurs that we have worked with since September, and we want to apply that learning. Here are three learning and growth lessons we have taken from our recent experiences:

1. SUPPORTING AND CONSOLIDATING LEARNING. We have noticed that many entrepreneurs have not grasped good accounting practices to ensure cashflow in their businesses. Our training guidance, if followed, should enable greater purchasing power in the long term. However financial management is a new skill for many of our would-be entrepreneurs, and an area of uncertainty. We already supply accounting books and suggested budget templates to assist them but confidence at using the books is low. To support this tool and encourage its use our Community Reps now plan to hold follow-up training for the entrepreneurs who have fallen behind the progress of others. This should help them get to grips with how to manage their accounts better for the future success of their business.
2. RECRUITING ENTREPRENEURS WITH APPETITE FOR CHALLENGE. We want to add to the pool of three entrepreneurs who are buying and selling in bulk, and actively growing their businesses. In preparation for our courses in the new year we are working to adjust our recruitment process. We have realised that we need to be certain that the community members who attend our training have a clear awareness of the challenges (and opportunities) of running a clothing micro-business, prior to the course. This will help them stick with it when times get tough. 
3. REACHING NEW MARKETS. So that we can continue to maintain stock levels, and in order to reach new markets, we are piloting our first ever Social Media Campaign. The flier below captures details. We are well on our way to reaching our target and expect to extend that target before the campaign comes to a close, as a result of the success! 

Wishing you a restful festive season and an exciting New Year, from all of us at Future Families.

Links:

• Future Families Christmas Newsletter