Paleki Ayang, Middle East, and North African gender advisor - Courtesy

Young entrepreneurs in South Sudan have been challenged to be more creative and innovative and invest in knowledge rather than physical things.

Paleki Ayang, Middle East, and North African Gender Advisor, and the Alpha Bank Managing Director Victoria Otieno made the call during the launch of the Get-Together Forum for young women entrepreneurs.

They told businesswomen to learn new skills each day and become experts in their respective fields.

According to them, skilled women invest in enriching their knowledge, not dealing with human hair and fashion designs.

In her remark, Paleki told the forum of young women to embrace patience and consistency while running their businesses to succeed.

She observed that young people want to achieve things faster and gain results in the shortest time possible.

“I wanted to tell our young entrepreneurs, to learn something new every day. The world is changing and you cannot remain stagnant. Master your skills and be the best in your field,” Paleki said.

“Invest in yourself. Investing in yourself does not mean human hair, designer bags, or shoes,” she said. “Investing in yourself means in your brain not only physically. Physically is important but you have to invest in your brain.”

“Look for mentors,” she said. “Mentors not only help you when you have challenges but also when you have options in front of you and you don’t know what direction to take,”

“The last thing that I wanted to say is Patience and consistency. I know as young people we are always in a hurry to achieve things, we are always in a hurry to do big things and great things,

“It’s important to dream bug but also it is important to be patient and consistent. Consistency pays.”

For her part, the Managing Director of Alpha Bank, Mrs. Victoria Otieno said, she observed with great concern what she describes as a lack of creativity among young women over the years.

She cited the common businesses South Sudanese do and are never succeeding.

Mrs Otieno challenged young women to be more innovative and creative and take advantage of the internet world.

“We discovered three things when we give funds. Young women don’t have good ideas. We are not creative and I want us to change our mindset with respect to creativity,” Otieno said.

“We only think of selling clothes, shoes, or having a restaurant,” she said. “We are not venturing into businesses that can make money that can make money that can make a change in our lives.”

“Go for training and get enlightened on other things happening in this country,” said Otieno. “The internet is there, you don’t have to think about South Sudan as your market, you have the whole world as your market.”

“You have to think about the new trends happening in the world,” she said. These days there is content creation, you can have your page and grow and make money online.”

“Let’s move away from the traditional businesses that we’ve been doing in the past,” Otieno said.

“Once you make the money, what are you using it for? Change your ideas in terms of business, watch your expenditure and also have mentors and role models also very important.”

In March, the National Minister of Culture Museums and National Heritage appealed to businesswomen to take advantage of technology in marketing their products.