The best choice for the youth to achieve the much sought after financial empowerment is for them to join good Saccos.
Offering young entrepreneurs admission into Saccos and other accelerators alleviates the risk and fear that comes with taking the leap into entrepreneurship alone. Enterpreneurhsip is an area where many youth have feasible ideas about but they lack the financial power to make their dreams a reality.
With a growing young population and high unemployment, it is important to encourage more young people to take entrepreneurship as a career to fully harness Kenya’s demographic dividend.
Those with little capital need more to grow and expand their businesses. Those who are employed need to save for their future and perhaps create more jobs.
Saccos need to adapt their investment offerings to suit very young entrepreneurs and facilitate their success.
They need to be aware of the unique context in which young entrepreneurs start and operate their businesses.
The circumstances the youth face make it hard for them to access finance under the traditional terms and conditions financial institutions often want to be met. A patient and supportive approach to financing the youth might encourage the start of more youth-led businesses.
Starting a business is demanding hence it is harsh to expect the youth to take a go at entrepreneurship alone. It is important to facilitate mentorship for youths who are taking the entrepreneurship route.
Mentoring programmes can ensure that very young entrepreneurs do not only get inspiration when the going gets tough, but they can also tap into the wealth of experience and lessons that have been accumulated by cooperatives.
It is important to support more potential young people to join Saccos as they help them unlock the value of their business. The youth can benefit through peer learning and sharing of creative talent in cooperative movement.
Most youth tend to spend all they have without sparing some for the future. It is advisable to save now when you are more energetic and more productive.
Saccos will assist this generation to develop a saving culture and commit part of their disposable income for their future.
The accumulated savings also enable them to access credit facility as they act as collateral for loans. The more the savings, the more the amount of loan one can be able to access.
In co-operative societies, members are provided with better services at reasonable prices. Saccos offer loans to members at very low interest rates as compared to commercial banks.
It assists in setting up production units and marketing of produce of small scale farmers.
In most cases, the liabilities of the members of the society are limited to the extent of capital contributed by them. Hence, they are relieved from the fright of attachment of their private stuff, in case the society suffers financial losses or goes bankrupt.
Therefore, it requires combined efforts from stakeholders within the youth ecosystem to ensure that more young people are encouraged to join Saccos. Stakeholders need to ensure that young people increasingly see opportunity from Saccos.
By David Kipkorir
Get more stories from our website: Sacco Review. For comments and clarifications, write to :Saccoreview@shrendpublishers.co.ke
Kindly follow us via our social media pages on Facebook: Sacco Review Newspaper for timely update
