Young entrepreneurs create job opportunities, support SMEs

After participating in the ILO digital marketing training, as part of UN joint programme, two young entrepreneurs join forces to start their own business. They hope to open new jobs for youth and provide various services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Kenichi Satria Kaffah and Joceline Elena Pakereng join forces to start their new digital business. After finishing their digital training and traineeship programmes in the mid of this year, these two young entrepreneurs are ready to begin their new business adventure by establishing Mitrayasa Multi Partner (My Mulpa).

My Mulpa, according to Kenichi, is launched to provide various services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that cannot afford to hire employees with certain competence to fulfil their business needs. “Our available services include, among others, accounting, digital marketing, design, customer service and human resources,” said Kenichi, 18 years old who was born with visual impairment.

A similar enthusiasm is also shared by his business partner, Joceline, 18 years old, who is just started her study at the Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta, majoring in psychology. “The ability to utilise social media as marketing tools is highly on demand now,” she said.

They both met online during their participation at the Upskilling in Digital Marketing training programme. The training was part of the Employment and Livelihood joint project  organized by four United Nations (UN) agencies in Indonesia, including ILO. The project is funded with the UN COVID-19 Response and Recovery Multi-Partner Trust Fund (UN MPTF).

Based on what they learnt during the training, they are both confident that they will be able to provide professional, digital services to the targeted SMEs. Kenichi believes that skills he learnt from his business coach to enhance his copywriting and content creation will help him improving his clients’ businesses. Meanwhile Joceline cannot wait to implement her new knowledge in planning and developing effective social media content plans and schedules.

They also believe what they have learnt about business development will help them building a solid business. “After learning a lot about aspects that are needed in developing a business, including costs, energy, skills and time, I am inspired to start my own business,” told Kenichi who is also a freshman at the Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University.

They even share same fascination and enthusiasm to face real clients. Through their traineeship programmes, both Kenichi and Joceline had an opportunity to experience how to deal with and devise digital marketing strategy for real clients.

During his traineeship with fashion brand Hwan Ecoethnic, Kenichi succeeded to increase the number of viewers of Hwan Ecoethnic’s Instagram account by creating a posting schedule and writing attractive captions. Meanwhile Joceline’s client, eco-friendly products manufacturer The Bless Shop, was very pleased to see the interactions on its Instagram account skyrocketed by 1,370 percent, thanks to her social media content plan.

“This positive experience has inspired me to take Kenichi’s offer to be partners and to build our own business,” she added.

The ability to develop their businesses and make the best use of what they have learned during the training is the main goal of this training programme. “The other goal is that to ensure the rapid development of the digital economy can be more inclusive and also benefit vulnerable groups,” Navitri Putri Gullaume, ILO’s project officer for Employment and Livelihood.

Kenichi has never thought that his interests in digital marketing will enable him to create job opportunities for other youth, while, at the same time, helping small businesses to grow. “My visually disabled parents are my role model for not making their disabilities as excuses to stop helping other people,” he said. “My late father worked as a master acupuncturist and studied in Japan. He also established a Hikari [Yayasan Hidup Berdikari] foundation to empower people with disabilities in Indonesia.”

Joceline shares the same view. Whatever the results, she says that the journey in establishing My Mulpa with Kenichi is a part of a valuable process to explore and recognise her strengths and weaknesses. As the COVID-19 pandemic shows that many tasks can be conducted online, they are certain that this new initiative to support SMEs will flourish and is in line with their study.

“Youth is a time for us to fail over and over again. Yet I believe that in each failure, there is always a lesson to be learned and a new perspective for us to see,” concluded Kenichi.

 

Source: ILO Website