The Secretary of State for Youth and Employment officially launched this Monday, November 28th, in Maputo, the program “Agora Emprega”, which aims to finance 500 small and medium national companies, with an overall value of 750 million meticais.
“For this national phase of ‘Agora Emprega’ that we are launching today, our goal is to empower 3,500 companies and, within these, we will finance 500 with an overall value of 750 million meticais already available,” announced the Secretary of State for Youth and Employment, Oswaldo Petersburgo.
The governor declared that “entrepreneurship, while transformation of ideas into real products and services through cost reduction, process flexibility, efficiency increase and improvement of people’s life conditions, should be used by the youth as a weapon in the Country’s development process”.
On the same occasion, the Secretary of State also delivered checks to the 50 winners of the pilot phase of the program now launched, which began in March and lasted until this month of November.
This pilot phase was open to young people from the city and province of Maputo, in which 3130 young people participated, of which 350 were selected and received training, with the aim of transmitting tools, knowledge and skills for financial management, human resources and production processes. 75 million meticais were disbursed, and each winner received funding of 1.5 million meticais to implement their business project.
Addressing the participants and winners of the pilot phase of “Agora Emprega”, Oswaldo Petersburg said: “we know that more than 3000 young people applied, and that from these 350 were selected for business training. Therefore, just the fact of going on to training is already a gain that should not be underestimated, but rather capitalized on. He continued: “this public ceremony is a practical demonstration of the impartiality of this program, a reason to salute all the participants in this process and, in a distinct way, to congratulate the contribution of the World Bank, a strategic partner of this program.
The young winners were pleased with the award and promised to implement their businesses, which they believe are important for society.
“For me, this moment is a game of emotions, because I started this project ‘na desportiva’, encouraged by a colleague from work, so the submission was just like that. Since I have a degree in agriculture, my project is based on this area, not only thinking of commercial purposes, but also of helping rural communities,” said Ricardo Romão, one of the winners of the competition.
In her turn, Carla Duvelo, another of the winners, said: “I, in the first phase, competed when the applications were launched and I was selected for the next phase, in which I participated in a training session for the elaboration of business plans. I thought about opening a chocolate factory based on macadamia nuts. I think what made my project stand out was the fact that it was subdivided, since the original plan is to open a chocolate factory, yes, but due to the costs, which are high, I divided it into three phases, with the first one being responsible for generating profits to implement the others.”
“Agora Emprega” is one of the components of the “Emprega” program, whose goal is to promote employment in Mozambique, aimed at young people who have a business idea or a project in a startup, micro, small or medium existing company, and who need support and guidance to make it a reality.
Emprega” is a Mozambican Government program implemented by the Secretariat of State for Youth and Employment (SEJE) through the National Youth Institute, and is supported by the World Bank.
