Youth told: Capital lies in knowledge, skills use

BY CORRESPONDENT DAVID

7th August 2013

IPP Executive Chairman Dr Reginald Mengi presents one million shillings to Tony Alfred, first winner of last month's competition involving topical poverty eradication tweets. (Photo: Khalfan Said)

Youths have been challenged to apply their knowledge and skills in finding solutions to the current social and economic challenges facing the country.

Speaking yesterday at a ‘Dr Reginald Mengi Tweet Poverty Eradication Competition’, the winner for July, Tony Alfred a graduate from the University of Dar es Salaam argued that one’s ability to solve social and economic challenges is one’s capital.

The graduate spoke shortly after Dr Reginald Mengi who initiated the competition presented him with a cash prize of 1m/-.

The winner, who is currently working as an entrepreneur running mobile coffee services at Ubungo Bus Terminal, said the vast majority of youths assume that establishing a business requires huge capital.
“As a result a majority of them including graduates get discouraged because they do not have the capital,” he said.

He said youths must be creative enough to find solutions to challenges, reasoning: “Such solutions are one’s capital… courage, knack for planning and confidence, are among the credentials young graduates should possess.

“The idea of providing coffee services at Ubungo Bus Terminal came to me one day, when I was travelling upcountry. I couldn’t find the service at the bus stand, so I considered it an opportunity,” he said.

Last month’s question on 'Dr. Reginald Mengi Tweet Poverty Eradication' was, “how youth, with neither employment nor money can financially liberate themselves?”
The winner answered: “As a youth think of what you can do for society in the present situation. The answer will be your capital and employment”.

The tweet got a total of 1,225 responses from various youths across the country.

For his part the first runner-up, John Mkungu from the Nelson Mandela University in Arusha said the youth should know their preferences and engage fully in providing standard services, noting that providing standard services could attract customers.

The first runner-up received 500,000/- while the second runner up Maduru Jumanne from Morning Star Radio got 300,000/-.

Jumanne said for the youth to get capital, those in rural areas should engage in agricultural activities while those in urban areas should find casual employment and while minimising their costs of living and save enough to establish their own businesses.

In mid May this year, the IPP Executive Chairman introduced the initiative to make a repository of new innovative and practical ideas to address the poverty crisis in the country.

The initiative uses social media, in this case twitter accounts, to collect ideas from the public that can be applied to resolve poverty in their communities whereas every month, the top three ideas win prizes in cash and kind.

Introducing the idea, Dr Mengi said the cache of ideas from the best tweets collected will be published in a book which will subsequently be distributed to the public.

For his part, Dr Donath Olomi the panel’s lead judge and the Chief Executive Officer at the Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship Development (IMED) said the creative tweets by youths can be utilised to establish investments and eventually eradicate poverty.

However, he said the ideas can also be used by public institutions, private institutions and policy makers for the good of the country. 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN