Deputy Managing Director, George Chitera (left) and TEVETA Executive Director, Elwin Chiwembu Sichiola exchanged the signed MoU
* The partnership is aimed at boosting the already existing talent and skills which are gained from these institutions
* We have decided to go into this partnership because we appreciate the role several disciplines play from these colleges
By Alfred Chauwa
Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training (TEVET), the Malawi’s sole vocational training regulatory authority — which also collects and manages training levies in the country — on Monday signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) with FDH Bank.
Advertisement
In the MoU, FDH Bank is expected to provide soft loans to graduates from TEVETA programs and at the signing ceremony, FDH Bank’s Deputy Managing Director, George Chitera said the partnership is aimed at boosting the already existing talent and skills which are gained from these institutions.
“We have decided to go into this partnership because we appreciate the role several disciplines play from these colleges,” said Chitera, adding that the youths from these colleges have great ideas but they lack support.
“So we believe if these young men and women are given a push in form of start-up capital they should be able to employ more. We want to turn these young graduates into employers.
On the same, Chitera appealed to the Government to ensure contracts are given to these young people and not foreigners all the time — giving an example that: “If young men and women want to venture into quarry crushing, then as a bank we can come in and buy a crushing kit for our young people; this is kind of partnership that the bank expect.”
Advertisement
He said it is sad to see Malawians crushing the quarry manually while the Chinese are buying the whole land just to mine the quarry.
With the partnership, FDH Bank will be giving K10 million to K50 million to each working business idea and will charge a small amount as interest on it — and on top of that, the Bank will also train the young people business entrepreneurship skills.
TEVETA Executive Director, Elwin Chiwembu Sichiola has since hailed the signing of the partnership, saying it will help all the graduating students to access working capital — emphasising that skills without working capital have no meaning at all.
He said Malawi is now graduating so many young people with skills through the programs that they run in technical colleges.
“But the challenge has been that when they graduate most of them do not find employment but they also cannot start their own businesses and through research we have discovered that one of the biggest challenges that these young people are facing is the issue of capital.
Weather update
“When they go to financial institutions, generally financial institutions will demand things like colateral and so many other things, which being first first graduates they don’t have.
“Luckily for us, we have managed to find a partner who shares in our ideas, but also who is as passionate as we are in seeing these young people prospering,” he said.
He applauded FDB Bank for agreeing to this arrangement where every graduate from a technical college will have opportunities to access the facility.
“Any graduate who is intending to start a small business can access financing, which is so reasonable in the form of a soft loan, but also whose requirements we believe every person can be able to achieve as long as they follow the requirements, which is to form groups.”
Sichiola said their graduates have brilliant ideas, which are going to work through this agreement since they will be able to access the funds to start their businesses and prosper just as they always want them to do.
“The way we have structured this agreement, it doesn’t have a limit in terms of the number of students and the number of ideas; so the students themselves will set the limit.”
Currently, Malawi will be graduating close to 7,000 students a year from technical colleges and Sichiola said they want everyone who cannot find a job or who wants to go into enterpreneurship to be able to access these loans and then start off their businesses so that they also can contribute to the socio-economic development of this country.
Advertisement