We support entrepreneurs who are building businesses that improve environmental and social sustainability while creating economic value. Umuzi aims to catalyse job creation and inclusive economic growth within South Africa’s green economy by empowering small and micro enterprises from ideation to established business stage.

Through targeted business development support, enhanced capability building, and improved access to opportunities, resources, and networks, Umuzi equips green entrepreneurs to grow and sustain impact. Using a phased, outcome-based approach, we identify, upskill, fund, and support enterprises with strong potential to generate sustainable earnings and create short- and long-term employment.The programme prioritises youth, women, and black-owned businesses from marginalised areas, with a focus on key sectors including Renewable Energy and Clean Technology, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, Waste Management and Circular Economy, Green Building and Construction, Sustainable Fashion and Creative Industries, Eco-Tourism, and Professional Enabling Green Services.

We work with young people and township-based delivery entrepreneurs to build inclusive, demand-led logistics enterprises that physically connect Umuzi’s ecosystem. Logistics is the circulatory system of the ecosystem. Township connectors handle last-mile delivery of food, goods, and services between ecosystem members, physically linking every sector and making the value loops real.

Every ecosystem needs a way to move things. Agripreneurs grow food, but that food needs to get to ECD centres. Green entrepreneurs collect waste, but it needs to reach composting sites. Digital tools can connect people, but physical goods still need physical delivery. Logistics is what makes those connections tangible.

Umuzi's logistics track trains young people as township connectors: last-mile courier and delivery entrepreneurs who move food, goods, and services between ecosystem members. They are the circulatory system of the connected ecosystem, ensuring that every physical transaction between sectors actually happens.

What makes this different from a typical courier service is that logistics entrepreneurs do not operate in isolation. They are part of the ecosystem, serving members they know, on routes shaped by real demand. An agripreneur's weekly vegetable delivery to three ECD centres becomes a standing route. A green entrepreneur's monthly waste collection run becomes a scheduled pickup. Over time, these routes get smarter as patterns emerge and data builds.

The logistics track starts with existing riders and delivery entrepreneurs joining through the membership pathway. As the ecosystem grows and routes stabilise, Umuzi introduces formal training from Stage 3, building skills in route optimisation, cold chain basics for food delivery, customer service, and small business management.

A dedicated Logistics Coordinator within the community team coordinates riders, optimises routes, and ensures reliability. The coordinator is not a driver but an organiser, making sure the right goods get to the right members at the right time.

Logistics connects every physical transaction in the ecosystem. It is the sector that turns the value loops from a concept into something you can see on the road.

We work with young people and small enterprises to drive innovation, sustainability, and inclusive growth within South Africa’s agricultural value chain. Umuzi empowers agri-entrepreneurs and producers from ideation to scale, equipping them with the technical, business, and digital capabilities to create livelihoods within the evolving agri-economy.

Our support model combines capability development, enterprise funding, and access to networks and markets. This outcome-based approach helps youth-led and black-owned agribusinesses adopt sustainable and regenerative practices while building viable pathways to earning and employment.

The initiative focuses on sectors such as Regenerative Agriculture, Agri-Tech and Digital Farming, Food Processing and Value Addition, Sustainable Supply Chains, and Agri-based Green Enterprises.

We support young women to build dignified, sustainable livelihoods within the care economy, with a focus on Early Childhood Development (ECD). In South Africa, ECD is a foundational yet under-resourced sector that plays a critical role in child development, family well-being, and economic participation, while remaining highly informal and dominated by women with limited access to skills development, capital, and structured career pathways.

Umuzi’s Care pathway equips aspiring ECD practitioners and entrepreneurs with practical care skills, business capabilities, and hands-on experience in safe, supportive learning environments. Through a structured learning-to-earning model, participants move from skills development into real-world practice and onward to the supported launch of their own enterprise or formal employment within the ECD sector.

By championing women as entrepreneurs and leaders in early learning, we strengthen access to quality ECD services in underserved communities while creating viable income opportunities. This approach advances gender equity and social equality, builds community resilience, and ensures that investment in care delivers lasting social and economic value for women, children, and their wider community.