Youth matters
Sifiso Suling Mathe and co-director Zinhle Loraine Mabizela recently won R40 000 in seed capital and access to business development support from a public-private partnership called the Mpumalanga Youth Entrepreneurship Programme (MYEP).
With the help of the MYEP the two go-getters from Bethal, Mpumalanga, will pursue solutions to challenges they face. These include theft, insufficient manufacturing space, and the need for business mentorship and funding.
Mathe and Mabizela registered Masande Designs and Construction Solutions (Pty) Ltd in December 2013 and started operating their brick manufacturing and construction services in 2015.
“Mzinoni Township where we lived was filled with old, red-brick houses that were falling apart. There was a gap in the market and we took it,” said Mathe.
Masande Designs and Construction Solutions now has two permanent and four part-time employees and manufactures bricks from recycled fly ash, sand and a special kind of cement that is ‘our secret recipe that gives our bricks extra strength’, according to Mathe.
It is the partners vision to service the entire Gert Sibande region by June 2017, and the whole of Africa in five years’ time.
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