The First Youth Programme is designed by IED and delivered in partnership with the First National Bank Botswana Foundation through the First Youth Centre in Molepolole. It is built for young people between 18 and 35, and it is deliberately more than a classroom course.
Two pathways
Participants choose one of two tracks: Entrepreneurship, for those building a business, or Career Development, for those moving towards employment. Both run for four months and combine structured classroom training with practical work — entrepreneurship and employability skills, mentorship, networking, business-development support and enterprise support.
Then three months of aftercare
The four months of training are followed by a three-month after-care period. This is the part that is easy to skip and hard to do without: continued contact and support while a graduate is actually looking for work, registering a company or making first sales. It is the difference between finishing a course and changing what someone does next.
What the results look like
Across multiple cohorts, 60% of First Youth graduates are either employed or running their own businesses. The FNB Foundation has described the programme as its biggest corporate social investment project to date.
Two examples from the Centre:
- Nthabiseng Mokaraoke joined with a product she believed in — Planet Lemonade — but no formal business around it. Through the programme she registered the company and strengthened her pricing, positioning and financial management. Planet Lemonade is now stocked at Square Mart, Namatota and Mr Veg, and the business fulfils Government Purchase Orders.
- Lesego Mpopang was in the very first cohort. He went on to found Penny Tycoon, a branding and printing company, and to build 24/7 Universal, a group that now includes a car wash, an internet café and a farming operation. In 2022 he represented the First Youth Centre at a Forbes event in Kasane.
Where it goes next
IED intends to strengthen the model by adding an incubation component, creating a clearer route for graduates from training into business creation, mentorship and growth — and, subject to funding, to replicate an enhanced training-and-incubation model beyond Molepolole.
