About Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF)

The Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF) is a Parastatal under the Ministry of Sports Culture & Youth Affairs established by the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini in 2009 in response to the vision of His Majesty King Mswati III. The company was established through legal notice No.179 of 2009. The main purpose of the Fund is to promote youth empowerment and alleviate poverty among young people between the ages of 18 to 35 years old.

Business clinics

The Fund (YERF) conducted outreach business clinics in the Lubombo, Hhohho and Shiselweni Regions in an effort to bring the fund to people particularly in rural areas.

The financial aid is targeted to young entrepreneurs who want to start new or expand businesses. The regions chosen were based on the low level of participation in applications which showed that these places may not be receiving much information about YERF therefore the Fund took the services to the people to ammend to this challenge. YERF spent two days in each Region (Lubombo and Shiselweni) moving from one Inkhundla to the other.

The business clinics were first held at Lubombo Region on the 19 and 20th of February 2020 where presentations were done to 18 young people at Sitsatsaweni, 36 at Matsanjeni North, and 22 at Mhlume in the evening. In total, 76 youth were reached in the Lubombo Region. On the 26th-27th of February 2020, YERF then visited the Shiselweni Region for thye same and spent two days educating youth in the region. The overall assessment of this visit was productive since the team presented to 21 young people at Ngudzeni, 38 at Sigwe, 31 at Shiselweni 1, 19 at Matsanjeni South, and 26 at Maseyisini. A presentation to 32 young people at Nhlangano National Library which was organized with the assistance of ENYC. YERF made presentations about her products to two schools, these were Form 4s and 5s of OSLO High School and Matsanjeni High School.