Thanks to her entrepreneurship and the additional support government gave to vulnerable people to cushion them from the impacts of the Coronavirus lockdown, Andile Simelane (25) is now the owner of a registered business, Andiey Projects Pty (LTD).
The Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal resident, who is a final-year public relations student at the University of South Africa’s Durban campus – and now also a micro chicken producer, says the additional money gave her the opportunity to better provide for her daughter.
She says when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that there was going to be an additional R500 for Child Support Grant recipients, she saw it as her opportunity to start saving so she could start a side business.
Simelane registered her business in June. Once she had saved R2 000, in September, she bought 50 day-old chicks, feed and the lights that she needed to get started.
Simelane has sold 15 chickens for a total of R400 and plans to sell the rest as braaied meat at a shisanyama.
The announcement by President Ramaphosa of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan could not have come at a better time for Simelane. She says one of the factors that motivated her to start a business was the level of unemployment among her peers in her village.
The plan aims to ‘reindustrialise our economy, focusing on growing small businesses’. Simelane plans to use the opportunities presented by the presidential plan to grow her business so that she can create jobs.
“I want to create jobs in my area, just like my father, who is a businessman, has done. The Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan will make it possible for small business owners like myself to grow their businesses into big commercial enterprises.”
Simelane says that she will use her profits to buy more chickens, while also putting some aside for her daughter’s education.
“I want to grow the business, hire people and enrol my daughter at a good school,” she says.
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