Entrepreneurs battle for respect

"As soon as we said we were from Soweto, they would reply: 'We'll call you' and then close the door. That would be the last you would hear from them," says Mtsholongo, a resident of the country's biggest and best-known township.

Having been rebuffed by the banks, Mtsholongo and Maphongwane refused to give up and instead started knocking on doors and persuaded friends and family to underwrite a computer game venture that is now earning them big bucks.

"We basically had to rely on the little that I saved when I was working and also borrowed some from my family," said Maphongwane, a former computer technician who is confined to a wheelchair.

The pair scraped together enough to buy a handful of computer games which they hired out to youngsters at a cost of R1 for ten minutes from a disused customs container.

Sixteen months on, they have expanded to now operate from a total of seven containers dotted around the sprawling township that are almost always full of youngsters outside school hours.

"We identified a gap in the market and decided to create an environment where disadvantaged children can come and play," Maphongwane told AFP.

Heartbeat of the new SA

"Their parents don't have the money to buy playstations and computer games because they are expensive, so we factored that into our pricing.

"Parents also love the idea and bring their kids here if they have somewhere they want to quickly go."

The pair were recently handed a cheque worth R100 000 by Virgin boss Richard Branson after they won a contest among young entrepreneurs in Soweto, which is home to around a million people.

Once best-known as a hotbed of anti-apartheid activity, Soweto is trying to reposition itself as the heartbeat of the new multi-racial South Africa.

But while Soweto's first five-star hotel and shopping mall have opened in the last couple of years, negative stereotypes are hard to shake off.

While there has been a big increase in the number of banks operating in Soweto in the 14 years since the end of apartheid, they are still only a fraction of the numbers in the predominantly white suburbs.

Richard Maponya, the multi-millionaire behind Soweto's newly-opened Maponya Mall, said he understood only too well the problems in trying to persuade banks to back business ventures in the township.

"I had lots of difficulty at the beginning like all other small businesses in Soweto," Maponya told AFP.

'Very difficult to access funds'

"It is still very, very difficult to access funds...when you are from a disadvantaged community like ours."

A spokesperson for Absa, one of the country's four main high street banks, said greater efforts were being made to tap into the business potential of townships and Soweto is home to one of three new small business advisory centres.

"The centres have been established to specifically focus on assisting small business and help entrepreneurs establish their own business, through access to support and development services, access to the financial products and services, and skills development," Mabotja told AFP.

Branson, speaking at a recent awards ceremony for Mtsholongo and Maphongwane, said any would-be entrepreneur who can spot the demand for a new service had the recipe for success.

"You need to come up with an idea that perhaps is relatively unique, like this one," said the one-time record company boss who set up his own airline.

"If it can work in one place, it can work anywhere."