- October 8, 2020
- Posted by: vitalclick
- Category: Venture Capital
Lamar Booysen qualified as chartered accountant in 2014, lives in Midstream and works in Sandton for Blue Label Telecoms. As a 33 year-old professional, his responsibilities include performing a broad spectrum of head office finance functions applicable in a listed environment as he fulfils his position as Group Technical Financial Manager. Yet, despite his busy work life, Lamar has also found time to ‘give back’ by becoming a mentor in the Phila Sizwe Mentor Hotline programme – an initiative created by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants’ (SAICA) Enterprise Development entity (SAICA ED) in partnership with the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa (ABASA), Fetola and FNB to assist SA’s SMMEs survive Covid-19.
|
Lamar Booysen |
“I believe that everyone is given a set of skills and opportunities not only for their own benefit, but for the betterment of society as a whole. It’s clear that in South Africa we’re in a stage of rebuilding and it’s imperative that we all bring our skillsets and resources to the table to pull together to help.”
He became part of this project because he believes that SMMEs “are crucial to the successful economic turnaround needed in our country. The role of mentors is to provide these SMMEs access to individuals that have the appropriate knowledge and experience in helping them troubleshoot or navigate difficulties or queries they may have in their respective business or field.”
Phila Sizwe does exactly that. The pilot programme ended on 31 August, but because it has been such a success, it has now been rolled out to businesses countrywide, says SAICA ED’s Jameel Kahn. “It is heart-warming to see people, especially prominent members and leaders, dedicating their free time to support others in this time of crisis,” he adds.
As its name indicates, Phila Sizwe (meaning ‘healthy nation’ in isiZulu) brings hope to SMMEs by providing pro bono professional mentoring services to them. Participating SMMEs have been registering on the Mentor Hotline platform housed by Fetola, who also prepared the relevant FAQs to assist mentors, and certificates for the short educational course forming part of the programme to prepare the mentors.
Qualifying SMMEs are then able to post their questions on the hotline and are matched to a volunteer mentor with the relevant skills and expertise to help them. Entrepreneurs can choose from any topic – including leadership and strategic planning, change management, turnaround strategies, finance and accounting, IT and telecommunications, sales and marketing, compliance and legislation – to receive assistance.
An enthusiastic 298 SAICA members enrolled in the pilot programme. Additional mentors were provided by ABASA, while financing partner FNB assisted in providing leads to qualifying SMMEs.
Lamar explains that he too has benefited from participating in the project: “I’ve definitely learnt the value of first understanding exactly what the required need is of the mentees, otherwise you can rattle off tons of information that is actually not relevant to their particular query.”
Mpho Mokoenene, one of the entrepreneurs using the Phila Sizwe mentoring platform, echoes that sentiment from the perspective of a mentee participating in the programme: “My mentor answered queries I hadn’t even asked. It’s a great system – I would rate him a 10! The mentor went above and beyond to reach out to me and assist me.”
To find out more about the Phila Sizwe Mentor Hotline, to help sponsor the project or to register as a volunteer or entrepreneur go to Fetola’s website.