Black Management Forum Young Professionals

BMF has many chapters across the country. The KZN chapter ran BMF Ekasi which ran enterprise workshops in townships like uMlazi. In East London we began by setting up pitching and networking sessions for entrepreneurs at Chairmans on the beach front. Matching guest entrepreneurs with idea stage and startup entrepreneurs through monthly dialogues. This was initially to encourage a problem solving outlook for youth owned enterprises in response to the newly launched startup fund from the office of the premier. This drew from the inner city and townships of Mdantsane and Duncan Village. When the national lockdown hit, contacts of the attendees were used to create a whatsapp group that now has 180 subscribers. Our approach since then has been to employ the principle of information as infrastructure. Sharing information on entrepreneurial and employment opportunities for all in the network. That way while many of the entrepreneurs are in the township they are not inhibited by our apartheid geography from accessing the same valuable information that their suburban based peers are exposed to. The use of virtual platforms for dissemination attempts to level the field of opportunities at least as far as the opportunities carried in the information shared. This is critically information that would not ordinarily reach these groups who are often so cued to look to government for most things.