Small businesses can create big opportunities – not only for fledgling entrepreneurs, but also for the communities in which they operate.
A loan facilitated by our Small Business Hub enabled Jim Mohuba, owner of Magapholi Mining and Electrical Services to create a business selling building materials
To ensure the long-term growth and sustainability of the small, medium and micro enterprise sectors, we launched our small business hub programme. This initiative is already helping to create employment, alleviate poverty and promote black economic empowerment by stimulating the development of small enterprises in the communities that surround our operations.
The initiative, which is the brainchild of Anglo American Zimele, our 20-year-old enterprise development arm, aims to create sustainable businesses in communities to ensure that when our operations in an area cease, local economies not only survive but thrive.
Its current network of 12 hubs is staffed by personnel with extensive experience in business development who facilitate loans through the Anglo American Zimele Communities Fund. They also provide fledgling entrepreneurs with free hands-on advice on the day-to-day running of their businesses. The geographical footprint of the programme is expanding with the formation of new centres that will complement the existing hubs.
Support services include business planning, training, mentoring and tax and accounting advice, while entrepreneurs are able to visit the hubs to access administrative facilities including the internet, fax machines, scanners and printers.
We have signed a pledge with Business Call to Action – a global initiative that challenges companies to apply their core business expertise, technology and innovative spirit, to tackle poverty, promote growth in developing countries and contribute to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. We are not only committed to uplifting our host communities but also those in our labour-sending areas and other impoverished regions of South Africa.
The Communities Fund
The Communities fund provides entrepreneurs with loan funding of up to R1 million per project and with its establishment, Anglo American has positioned itself as a thought-leader in the area of funding entrepreneurs who are not considered ‘bankable’ by traditional resource providers.
The success of the fund can primarily be attributed to the low fixed-interest rate of its loans, although other critical contributors to its success are the business support, training and mentorship provided by the hubs. Anglo American Zimele is launching a fourth enterprise development fund to help women, the disabled and the youth to establish and run their own small businesses with entrepreneurial skills training as a starting point.