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An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town

Youth are able to respond to their needs for an income through entrepreneurship. However, some who operate informal businesses face challenges that may hinder the progress of their businesses and ultimately their income generation. In the light of this, there are support initiatives by the governmen...

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Main Author: Ramafikeng, Likenkeng Adelinah
Other Authors: Booyens, Margaret G
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Social Development 2016
Subjects:
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access_status_str Open Access
author Ramafikeng, Likenkeng Adelinah
author2 Booyens, Margaret G
author_browse Booyens, Margaret G
Ramafikeng, Likenkeng Adelinah
author_facet Booyens, Margaret G
Ramafikeng, Likenkeng Adelinah
author_sort Ramafikeng, Likenkeng Adelinah
collection Thesis
description Youth are able to respond to their needs for an income through entrepreneurship. However, some who operate informal businesses face challenges that may hinder the progress of their businesses and ultimately their income generation. In the light of this, there are support initiatives by the government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for small businesses to address some of the challenges they may meet. The question remains whether young people have knowledge of these initiatives and whether they benefit from them. The current study explored the experiences as well as business aspirations of young people running their own informal businesses in Gugulethu. There were fifteen (15) salon owners who participated. These participants were identified using purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data as part of a qualitative, explorative approach. The findings revealed that participants face a number of challenges during the start-up and the running stage of their salons. These challenges differed in nature; but there was a common challenge of the lack of financial support by the government. Those that had no financial problems were those who received financial and emotional support from family and friends. Even though young people were faced with these challenges, they came up with strategies to deal with each identified challenge. These showed how determined these hairdressers were to see their businesses succeed and grow. There are indeed policies, programmes and organizations aimed at ensuring the smooth running of informal businesses. Despite this, most young people were not aware of any association, programmes or service that they as hairdressers could benefit from. The findings also revealed that in spite of their struggles, young hairdressers aspired to expand their businesses, but to do this they required both financial and emotional support.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:34:38.153Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2016
publishDateRange 2016
publishDateSort 2016
publisher Department of Social Development
publisherStr Department of Social Development
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20613 An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town Ramafikeng, Likenkeng Adelinah Booyens, Margaret G Social Development Youth are able to respond to their needs for an income through entrepreneurship. However, some who operate informal businesses face challenges that may hinder the progress of their businesses and ultimately their income generation. In the light of this, there are support initiatives by the government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for small businesses to address some of the challenges they may meet. The question remains whether young people have knowledge of these initiatives and whether they benefit from them. The current study explored the experiences as well as business aspirations of young people running their own informal businesses in Gugulethu. There were fifteen (15) salon owners who participated. These participants were identified using purposive and snowball sampling. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data as part of a qualitative, explorative approach. The findings revealed that participants face a number of challenges during the start-up and the running stage of their salons. These challenges differed in nature; but there was a common challenge of the lack of financial support by the government. Those that had no financial problems were those who received financial and emotional support from family and friends. Even though young people were faced with these challenges, they came up with strategies to deal with each identified challenge. These showed how determined these hairdressers were to see their businesses succeed and grow. There are indeed policies, programmes and organizations aimed at ensuring the smooth running of informal businesses. Despite this, most young people were not aware of any association, programmes or service that they as hairdressers could benefit from. The findings also revealed that in spite of their struggles, young hairdressers aspired to expand their businesses, but to do this they required both financial and emotional support. 2016-07-22T13:16:04Z 2016-07-22T13:16:04Z 2016 Master Thesis Masters MSocSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20613 eng application/pdf Department of Social Development Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Social Development
Ramafikeng, Likenkeng Adelinah
An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town
thesis_degree_str Master's
title An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town
title_full An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town
title_fullStr An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town
title_full_unstemmed An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town
title_short An exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in Gugulethu, Cape Town
title_sort exploration of the experiences and business related aspirations of youth running their own informal hair salon businesses in gugulethu cape town
topic Social Development
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20613
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