At Trail’s End we have a big heart for community development and we are desperate to use our position and influence to build and unify our local community. Therefore, last week we were extremely privileged to host the awards evening for this year’s Biggest Deal competition.
This exciting initiative is run annually by Theewaterskloof Municipality to encourage youth entrepreneurship and sustainability. The competition is open to teams aged 14-18 from schools within the Theewaterskloof district. The teams have to pick a business idea and complete a number of pre-determined challenges over a number of weeks. The team with the highest profit wins.
We love the vision behind this project and the evening itself was an immense success. It was so inspiring to witness the number of creative and driven youth we have within our community and see that some of the businesses started from the initiative continue to be successful beyond the bounds of the competition. Over the course of the awards evening various team members shared their stories and goals for the future and some told how the newly created businesses had helped to provide extra income for their households and created greater unity within their families and the wider communities. These youth truly have the potential and commitment to be the leaders of tomorrow!
Participants had the opportunity to meet the local mayor and celebrate their achievements whilst talent from the Rural Arts Network’s De Rust Futura Akademie choir created a festive atmosphere with their musical performance. The winning team, Team Splash & Dash from De Villiers Graaf High School in Villiersdorp, claimed first prize for their innovative mobile carwash business and other awards such as Most Sustainable Business were distributed too.
The whole initiative was only possible because various aspects of the community came together for a common cause. It would not have worked without the sponsors who funded the projects and the mentors who generously gave of their time and wisdom for the participants.
We thoroughly recommend the Biggest Deal programme and can see how it actively contributes to creating hope for our youth in a practical and sustainable way. Perhaps you know of someone who would like to participate next year? (Click here for more info) We certainly look forward to seeing what the next programme produces!
