We will continue to deploy a holistic approach to engaging
key stakeholders and communities in enterprise support, training support,
community advocacy, and awareness campaigns.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BUSINESS TRAINING
Business skills training courses are designed to support women micro-entrepreneurs during the early stages of developing their businesses. The Improve Your Business (IYB) package introduces already practicing entrepreneurs to good principles of business management in the six knowledge areas of marketing, costing, buying and stock control, record keeping, planning for your business, and people and productivity. To ensure the training is relevant to the supported micro-entrepreneurs, both the business and the entrepreneur are assessed, and performance gaps identified. These inform the design, emphasis, and sequencing of the training intervention.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP TRAINING
Hand in Hand renders entrepreneurship training to beneficiaries as well as the opportunity to incubate and start up a business idea. The target audience is mainly women and youth in and out of school. Candidates are taken through a combination of HIH modules and International Labour Organisation (ILO) accredited modules, such as: Generate Your Business Idea (GYB), Start Your Business (SYB) AND Improve Your Business (IYB)
MENTORING - POST TRAINING SUPPORT
At the end of each training module, the entrepreneurs are expected to develop 3–4 enterprise Action plans to be implemented within their businesses. Mentoring provides a support framework for the entrepreneurs and the guidance needed to implement agreed action items arising from the training sessions conducted. Through business advisors, HiH is able to provide the entrepreneurs with the ongoing mentoring and coaching required to convert cognitive knowledge gained into tangible outcomes at enterprise level, which is key to the transformation of micro-businesses into sustainable enterprises at community level.
ACCESS TO MICROFINANCE
Hand in Hand facilitates access to funding (loans and grants) for its supported beneficiaries from a wide range of finance service providers where such arrangements are deemed beneficial to the supported micro-entrepreneurs. In some cases, specific funds are ring-fenced within a specific project to support targeted beneficiaries with loans orgrants or a combination of the two, and HIH manages the funds using its EIF platform. The fund size and loan thresholds are determined by the needs on the ground and available funding resources.