One of our most important founding principle is to skill and capacitate South Africans, particularly rural women and youth, towards socio-economic empowerment, self-reliance and a better life. Fuze specialises in designing and developing training programmes that are aimed at equipping participants to be employers as opposed to being just mere employees or at worst, destitute people who are entirely dependent on the Government’s social grant system for their livelihoods. In seeking innovative solutions to the crippling scourges of poverty, unemployment and marginalisation suffered by the vast majority of rural populations, we embarked on a three-year research initiative, which led to a profound understanding of the concept of Cooperatives and their role in alleviating poverty in various parts of the world. Fuze noted that cooperatives have contributed significantly to the improvement of the standards of living of half the world’s population as they have lifted millions of people out of poverty, including in South Africa. This bears testimony to the fact that co-operatives play a significant role in the country’s economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation. Many examples emanating from Canada and Germany show that Government commitment played a pivotal if not a critical role towards the registration, training, resource allocation, mentorship, incubation and support of cooperatives over a period of up to five (5) years, when the cooperatives were administratively sound enough to become independent thriving enterprises that have captured a major share of their respective markets. The key lesson to be learnt from the above is that, apart from training and the initial setting up of the business, continuous mentorship, incubation and support over a period of no less than three years is pivotal to the survival and sustainability of most cooperatives, which a core value in the programmes of Fuze.