GARISSA celebrates Chora Bizna Provincial Award Winners
3 lucky winners from Garissa took home a total of Ksh150,000 of prize money last Friday at the Nomad Palace Hotel in Garissa in front of their family, friends and mentors. The money is to be used to invest in their small businesses so that they can become more successful and help improve the success of young Kenyan entrepreneurs inline with the aims of the Ministry of Youth and the Sponsors of the Nationwide Chora Bizna – Believe Begin Become business plan competition. From a total of 70 applications, Hassan Diba (pictured bottom right of photo together with all the graduates) was selected as the overall winner of the North East Province with his business plan for Wirsan Quality Supplies. He won a Ksh70,000 investment kindly donated by KCB. He plans to set up a livestock transporting business connecting farmers in Garissa with consumers in Nairobi. On accepting the award Hassan told the audience that the Chora Bizna training “was better than the training my friend got for his MBA diploma” and that after the training “20 pages was not enough to contain my ideas in a business plan, I would have needed to submit 50 pages to account for my detailed plan”. Other winners in Garissa were (pictured together with their KBC cheques): Abdiaziz Issa Hudow, 2nd place, Ksh30,000 award, for his business Millenium Computer Training Centre Maalim Dalha Ahmed, 3rd =, Ksh25,000 award, for his business Holwadag Livestock Trading Project Madera All of the provincial winners now travel to the Chora Bizna Final in Nairobi as one of 100 National finalists. Here they will compete to win the Ksh1million first prize and title of KPC Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2007. Notes to editors: The Ministry of State for Youth Affairs and TechnoServe Kenya supported by the Kenya Pipeline Company, Lenovo and Kenya Commercial Bank have joined forces to promote entrepreneurship and private sector development in Kenya through a Business Plan Competition called Chora Bizna - Believe Begin Become. The program is designed, managed and executed by TechnoServe on behalf of the Ministry of State for Youth Affairs. The competition was launched on 12th of April 2007 and since then has reached thousands of young people in Kenya. Chora Bizna held road shows in 23 towns across the country and as a result, over 5100 young people applied for the competition. Chora Bizna short listed 300 of these for training and coaching on how to improve their plans and teamed them up with local business mentors. The provincial winners are the top 3 positioned entrepreneurs in each province based on the judging of their business plans by a panel of independent judges. 100 finalists now travel to Nairobi in November for the final round of the competition for further training and to select the national winners. For more information please contact: jamespotter@technoserve.or.ke
