Youth who graduate at Holly Trust Ltd decry lack of seed capital

Elias Hakizimana Mar 22, 2023 0 Comments

By Elias Hakizimana.

Youth who have completed training in food processing with the support of the Rwanda TVET Board (RTB) through the Skills Development Fund (SDF) project in collaboration with Holly Trust Ltd announce readiness to invest in own enterprises but claim lack of startup capital.

At their graduation day, last week, they were happy for this achievement. Before they joined Holly Trust Limited, they were challenged by the labour market situation, as their certificates were not leading them to the labour market.

They later decided to take a 6-month training from this institution, which has experience in agro-processing.

Shaffy Hagenimana, CEO-Founder, Holly Trust Limited, an agro-processing company that trained these graduates said that they were given twenty students to be trained in food processing, who are at the level of establishing own factories.

Trainees also gained skills in producing cosmetics such as hand sanitizers and they are at the level of making their own investments as entrepreneurs according to Hagenimana.

“Our graduates are ready to contribute to the labour market by investing in own firms. In our long-term goals, we have KASSO SkillUp where we provide free skills. We are happy that RTB and SDF have put incentives, which help us to bridge employee gap. 20 graduates (70 percent) of the total enrolled in our programs were employed by Holly Trust Ltd in KASSO production, we plan to move from 20 to 50 and 50 to 70 trainees in our next enrollments,” said Hagenimana.

Hagenimana said that this initiative to train more youth in labour market needs will help to transform the society free from unemployment.

Rose Mutavu, one of the graduates who benefited from a six-month training in Holly Trust, said that they were trained in processing foods like avocado oil, etc.

She said that the skills acquired will help them to produce a variety of food products needed by Rwandans at the markets.

“The next step is to approach people in the industry to boot these skills, and we request the government and other stakeholders to support us, by giving us startup capital in order to implement various projects,” she said.

J.M.Vianney Rwiririza, CEO, RYAF, commended the efforts of the Government of Rwanda to establish TVET schools in boost youth employability skills.

“We encourage youth who still have poor mindset that TVET is for nothing, to join it because it contributes towards life transformation and economic development of the country. As RYAF, we help youth to boost skills, to advocate for them and link them with the Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), we have the Business Development Fund (BDF) that give them collateral and they are welcome at RYAF so that we accompany them through that journey until they get startup,” Rwiririza said.

He thanked Shaffy for serving a good example by venturing into food processing and helping the country to create more jobs for youth.

Donat Nemeye, one of the trainers said that the most important is to equip them with necessary skills to be able to invest in their own enterprises.

“We trained them on food safety and hygiene so that they produce quality products, we believe that they have got enough skills acquired over the last six months, the next step is to help them implement these skills,” he said.

Among the 20 graduates employed by this institution, 16 are girls while 4 are boys.

This year, around 54 young boys and girls got jobs through KASSO SkillUp.