HUYE- Rwanda Development Board (RDB) in collaboration with the Ministry of Trade, Monday launched a one-week entrepreneurship awareness campaign which seeks to sensitise the youth on opportunities to encourage self-employment.

The campaign, which targets youth in higher institutions of learning across the country, kicked off at the National University of Rwanda (NUR).

The university’s main auditorium was filled to capacity with students from NUR, the Catholic University of Rwanda and the Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences (PIASS).

The exercise is being conducted under the theme; "promoting entrepreneurship as a career path to success”.

It coincided with the global Entrepreneurship Week, which also started Monday across the world, with the aim of demonstrating the critical role of entrepreneurship in addressing unemployment.

Speaking at the function, Apollo Munanura, the head of Human Capital & Institutional Development at RDB, observed that entrepreneurship is a definite way of contributing to both self development and that of the country.

"The message to the youth is that they can be job creators rather than jobseekers. It is possible and it is the way to fast-track our economic development,” Munanura observed.

John Nkubana, the programme manager in charge of industrial development in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to promote entrepreneurship, especially among the youth.

"The government is committed to supporting those willing to venture into this or that business. We want to promote private enterprise as a way of creating many jobs because the government itself cannot find jobs for each and every citizen,” Nkubana stated.

According to Nkubana, the government will sponsor 300 business projects across the country before the end of the 2011-2012 financial year.

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