On the 11th and 12th of this month, at the BCI headquarters in Maputo, secondary school students from Chilembene district, Gaza province, were trained in entrepreneurship, as part of a partnership between the Commercial and Investment Bank (BCI) and the Machel Fidus Association.

The teenagers and young people, whose ages range from 14 to 19, acquired tools in the areas of financial literacy, marketing and sales, etiquette and protocol, public speaking, among other subjects.

The training took place within the framework of the protocol recently signed by the two institutions, which calls for inter-institutional cooperation in the implementation of the "Um Gesture, A Smile" and certificates and cell phones were awarded to the participants.

For Orlando Tembe, BCI's Products and Services Manager, and one of the trainers, "the students have acquired various skills that will help them to carry out their own projects, and to a certain extent they will be able to identify opportunities in the market and offer services".

He spoke in particular of financial and other resource management, planning and budgeting, as subjects taught that "will provide the beneficiaries with fundamental tools for transforming ideas into entrepreneurial projects".

The modules were also taught by specialists from the following institutions: DDB, TJ Consultants and Rotaract Clube de Maputo.

Now in its fourth edition, this program developed by Machel Fidus is in the midst of an expansion phase across the country's provinces, against the backdrop of the introduction of a sustainable development "ecosystem" made up of different components, namely agriculture, nutrition, technology and the environment, with the aim of improving the teaching-learning process for students.