Bank gives school leavers a second chance

Education

The National Development Bank’s young enterprise scheme, which recruited people aged 18 and above, is now extending to high school leavers.
NDB investments chief executive officer Desmond Yeninen said this was to give students hope so that they would not turn to corrupt activities due to hardships encountered after leaving school.
He said the programme was aimed at providing practical ways for aspiring young people to become accomplished business owners.
Yeninen said the programme, which would start in 2018, would be the second batch of young entrepreneurs under the programme and hoped that it would help young people to be successful not only in education but in life as well.
“For each batch, those who are successful in starting up a small business will be given funding which will be 10 times their initial investment.”
He said the public must also take note that this programme would not cater for all young people due to the continuous increase in the number of school leavers each year.
“The programme would cater for at least 10 per cent of the young population.”
Yeninen suggested that to help all young people have access to such opportunities, the government should have this programme built in to its annual budget.
“They (the government) should have a commitment to help the school leavers and provide at least K20 million alone for these young people,” he said.
“This would then help NDB increase recruiting spaces and funding activities.”