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Lovemore Meya : Cool Lifestyle Correspondent

It is everyone’s dream to be a successful person in life through any available avenue and the same goes to school children who are being taught how to hone their entrepreneurship skills thanks to Junior Achievement Zimbabwe. JAZ is a company program targeting young people in schools aged 15-19 years and the program is implemented in four provinces in Zimbabwe.The students select their leadership and run the company for at least 12-16 weeks in a year with shareholders and each has at least 25 members.

This real-world program helps students put theory to practice by starting their own enterprise, from concept to business plan, financing, execution, sales and, ultimately, growth.

JAZ last Friday conducted leadership training at Prince Edward School with five representatives from 30 schools taking part.

Students follow proceedings at the Junior Achievement Zimbabwe leadership seminar at Prince Edward School in Harare last week

The five had to take on the roles of chief executive officers, human resource managers, production managers and marketing executives among others then come up with strategies for their companies.

Banks including MBCA, Barclays and other companies like Lobels, Zimnat and Road Roofs deployed their personnel to help the future entrepreneurs understand better how real business runs.

After going through training on how to effectively execute their roles, the students said they felt challenged and were going to reflect on what they learnt.

A Girls High student, Tishan Nyaunwa who occupies the position of marketing director said communication skills are important in an organisation.

“I am going to change on my communication skills so that I can implement marketing effectively to increase the sales of our products,” said Nyaunwa.

Scenes at the Copa Coca Cola games held at Dewure High School in Gutu recently

“As marketing personnel, I should delegate duties. After school, I wish to go into banking because I have realised that is where my strength lies. This program was very helpful, teaching us strategies on how we can operate our companies as we realised that we were heading on a wrong direction.”

Rudo Gwezangwe CEO of Monte Cassino group said, “Having attended the training it means being fine-tuned and a boost confidence on whatever we are set to embark on. Being a CEO does not mean one should be a boss but be a leader since there is a difference between the two.

“When one is a leader it means working with others while being a boss, you are tempted to be rude and forget to work as a team.”