Sowing the Seeds of Social Entrepreneurship

 

Johannesburg, South Africa- Saeed Mohamed has an extremely busy schedule.  He is continuously on the go, not only for his job working as Strategic Relationship Manager at Barclays Africa Johannesburg headquarters-but also working as a business mentor and coach to young South African entrepreneurs; and he loves every minute of it.  Life, however, was not always this inspiring for Mohamed

One of nine children, he recalls a normal childhood with his family in Somalia. His father ran a successful logistics company and his mother managed a cafeteria.  He grew up learning the family business and even as a young teenager, he would help out his father regularly.  However, when he was 17 years old in 1991, the civil war broke out in Somalia causing his whole family to flee the country.  They ended up scattered across various neighboring countries. 

In 1998, decided to make his way to South Africa with another compatriot.  The journey by road and sea was challenging.

“As much as I felt frustrated, a part of me felt that I was going to be okay,” says Mohamed. “While there were moments of hopelessness, like when we were resting under a tree, tired, frustrated and hungry, I never wanted to give up.  Something inside me kept telling me to keep going.”

After he arrived in South Africa he applied for asylum and after a few months he was granted refugee status.

Mohamed immediately began rebuilding his fractured life earning a living through hawking various items on the streets of Cape Town.  He didn’t earn much but he managed to save some money to visit Robben Island, where political prisoners including Nelson Mandela, were held during apartheid.  His tour guide was a former political prisoner who told the group about life in imprisonment.

After that tour, Mohamed began to see South Africa differently. He was very grateful that he was given asylum and vowed that he would do whatever he could to make a difference in the lives of young South Africans

Always in the back of his mind, however, Mohamed yearned to continue with his studies.  “My father used to inspire us to study and I wanted to follow my father’s dream for all of his children.  I had to find out if I could go to university.” he said

He took some business courses from some tertiary institutions that allowed him to eventually enroll in the Tshwane University of Technology with financial support from South African National Zakah Fund and several other Muslim organisations.

After completing his studies, he teamed up with fellow countrymen to start and manage a number of businesses including a shop called Cash and Carry which created employment and an entrepreneurial spin-offs for both the local and his community. 

“Some kids grew up wanting to be an engineers, doctors or soldiers, etc. but when I was young I’ve always wanted to be a man of the people. A person who was socially connected, ambitious and a person who could help the weak,” says Mohamed.

He established a business academy to transfer some of the Somali entrepreneurial skills and learn from the host community exchanging business ideas and models. 

In June 2013, he lost the business to a fire.  “That was a turning point for me” he recalls. 

Life was becoming difficult and he didn’t know what to do but still kept going using his long built resilience to look for opportunities. In 2014, Mohamed attended a “Proudly South African” event hosted together with Absa bank, a member of Barclays Africa on entrepreneurship. At this event, he discussed his ideas on sharing entrepreneurial skills between the Somali business community and South African youth.

That same night, he received a call from Iqram Abdul Haq, now the Head of Business Banking for Barclays Africa.  The bank was planning to grow its Islamic banking offering and felt that working with the Somali community would be one way to achieve that. It would also help the Somalis who were victims of robberies because they had difficulties in gaining access to banking.

“We understood from our discussions that the Somalis and other immigrant communities want to register their business and to pay value added tax (VAT) but they didn’t know how,” Haq explains. “Through our project with Islamic banking we are able to share economic growth and allow them to contribute taxes and to work toward inclusion in to the formal banking system. Saeed’s insight and ability to bridge the gap has been critical to these programmes.”

Meeting Haq and getting involved with the bank was a game changer for Mohammed. “I lost many valuable possessions in my youth but I had built up great resilience and tenacity, so I thought I could make a change. I wasn’t just looking for a job, but in my heart I wanted to help build bridges between communities and working on social entrepreneurship.”

Now, with Islamic Banking and the possibility for Absa, the South African division of Barclays Africa, to accept refugee identity documentation, members of the Somali, Ethiopian and other immigrant communities could access the bank not only to deposit their earnings in bank accounts but also to access credit facilities which could be used to grow their businesses.

Recently Absa’s Enterprise Development Centre located in Newtown, Central Johannesburg, held an event to bring Somali, Ethiopian business leaders together with several groups helping South African youth in the area of entrepreneurship and building partnerships.

 

“On average, Somalis employ two South Africans in their businesses, says Haq. “With an estimated 75,000 Somali owned businesses in the country, that is potentially 150,000 jobs created for South Africans.” 

“If we can exchange best practices and work together and not against each other, we can go far, “says Charlton Thangalan, the Director of Absa’s Enterprise Development Centre. Many of the participants in the forum that day agreed to commit to volunteer to become mentors to South African youth.

Mohamed had already made that commitment years earlier. Tisetso Maloi, a young South African social entrepreneur heard Mohammed tell his story at a youth event where he coached, mentored and trained young South Africans youth in transferring entrepreneurial skills, and immediately linked up with him to be her mentor.

“He was so humble and something about his story captured me,” says Maloi. “The fact that he was Somali was not an issue.  I was raised to believe it doesn’t matter where you are from, if you are brought up to respect everyone.  I am impressed by how the Somali community managed to make a living for themselves, despite starting over in a new country. We should be able to learn more from each other.”

“The initiatives from Absa/Barclays Africa are admirable,” says Sharon Cooper UNHCR’s Regional Representative to Southern Africa.  “Not only do they recognize the value of the skills refugees have as they participate in the economy, but it also helps to build social cohesion between refugees and the host community. It is a prime example of how the private sector and in turn, local economics can benefit from the presence of refugees.”

Mohamed stresses that he is not doing this work with the bank just to earn a living.

“I know the sound of the real bullet and that was enough for me. I now want to give back to the country that gave me a safe haven and this work with Absa/Barclays Africa allows me to do just that.”