National Association of Young Entrepreneurs in Mozambique – Raise of the Young Mozambican Entrepreneurs
The National Association of Young Entrepreneurs (Associação Nacional de Jovens Empresários de Moçambique – ANJE), founded in February 2010, is a non-profit organization, formed by about 600 young entrepreneurs and beginners, from 18 to 35 years of age, whose goal is to promote youth entrepreneurship through business training and advocacy for a youth-friendly business environment. ANJE advocates for a social economic system capable of ensuring the inclusion, sustainability, diversity and competitiveness of the economy of Mozambique.
ANJE was founded by a group of young Mozambicans, among whom some who could not find employment opportunities and others who had already embraced the path of entrepreneurship, understood that there were many obstacles to overcome them alone.
Their dream was to create a movement of national reference that could open the door for other young people who wanted to start or develop their businesses in a competitive and sustainable way.
“Nowadays the organisation is acting as an incubator for young entrepreneurs in many provinces in Mozambique. We are helping with writing business plans and organizing the finance of young people who want to start a company” – says Feleciano Januário, the coordinator of ANJE in the city of Beira.
Especially in controlling ANJE has to offer a lot for his members. They programmed an app called “E-CONTA”, allowing the users to have an easy finance overview of the cashflow of their new company. The app increased the success rate of new business a lot.
ANJE also help to create the “HUB Link” as a platform to connect all relevant groups that works in the start-up area.
An example of a successful social impact enterprise that raised with the help of ANJE is “FELUJA”, the company owned by Feliciano, which is offering a solution to the very common problem of document forgery in Mozambique. His company created a system that brands a document with a QR-Code which leads to the document database of “FELUJA” and offers a reference if the document is real or has been manipulated.
To the question what he would change in Mozambique, Feleciano answerd that he want to attract more business angels, who can help start-ups in their early stages.
