The music artist, businessman and creator of the famous Reggae Reggae sauce ran an exclusive workshop with our Young Entrepreneurs, giving valuable advice on their business ventures

It was a privilege to have Levi Roots take time out of his busy schedule to meet our young entrepreneurs, hear about their business endeavours and offer his inspiration and advice in an exclusive workshop on Monday evening, 2nd November 2020.

During the session he gave a dedicated talk and Q&A session on managing a business and participants from the Active Horizons programme were able to directly ask him questions geared towards their own business ventures.

The Young Entrepreneurs Programme was designed to be a springboard for participants to learn how to build, launch and run a business around their interests. The programme was launched earlier this year when we asked our young people at the start of lockdown how we can continue to support them through a time of uncertainty and social distancing. Together we came up with the Young Entrepreneurs Programme, designed to nurture the talent and ideas of our young people and help give them a sense of agency and control over their futures and harness their boundless energy and creativity into a positive venture.

Levi Roots became involved after Cynthia Mukoko, Chair of Active Horizons, wrote to him. She’d attended an event with him some years back and asked if he’d be interested in participating. To our delight, he replied in less than 24 hours.

Yeukai Taruvinga, Founder and Director of Active Horizons, said: “We’re honoured that Levi Roots took part in the scheme to encourage and inspire our young entrepreneurs. We’re very proud of their efforts and it’s a privilege for us to have their work recognised in this way. It’s very generous of him to share his time and allow the young people to learn directly from his experiences. It helps to validate everything they’ve done. They’ve shown such drive and I think his presence is a testament to both their progress and the success of the scheme so far.”

Why did we launch the programme?

2020 has been an emotionally draining time for our young people. This year we’ve seen a huge social shift take place, both with the global pandemic and the ongoing discussion taking place around institutional and societal racism. We endeavour to remain positively active about how we take steps to ensure that black and minority children are supported and nurtured in a society that often presents them with challenges beyond their control.

This year it was vital that we embraced technology to continue our work online. This entrepreneur programme expands the work of Active Horizons with our ongoing mission to develop and broaden the horizons of young people, giving them the skills and confidence they deserve to be able to build and lead into their adult lives. Specifically the programme walks them through the inception stages of a business idea right through to financial planning, scaling their creative ideas to something deliverable and realistic, breaking the process down at each stage into achievable chunks. The programme was designed to be challenging and the Young Entrepreneurs have worked tirelessly, showing commitment and deep thought.

Levi Roots gave his parting advice to the youngsters participating in the programme: “Don’t undermine your own worth by comparing yourself to others, it’s because we are all different why each of us is special. Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important because only you know what’s best for you. Follow your own self and thoughts. Respect.”

Help us to help others

Active Horizons has managed to deliver this programme, and many others, with very little funding and we’d therefore like to ask our community to continue showing us support in whatever way they can. From sharing the story online, to donating or fundraising, we’re grateful for everything our community does to get behind us.

We have a strong tradition in relationship building, and if anyone else wants to offer their time to help continue our work, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Alternatively, to help us continue our work, you can donate using the link below.

>>Donate to Active Horizons
>>Sign your child up for one of our schemes
>>Read our press release