In February 2010, Mthente was commissioned by the Basotho Enterprises Development Corporation (BEDCO) to facilitate a training workshop for the officers who are involved in the development of Small, Medium and Micro enterprises in Lesotho.

In delivering on the objectives of this workshop, Mthente developed a comprehensive training package, which made reference to the strategic BEDCO business plan that Mthente facilitated in the past.

The training workshop focused on developing skills for the following areas:

• Case writing;
• Writing a work-plan;
• Developing and writing a business plan;
• Providing business counselling session(s) to entrepreneurs;
• Assessing the current position of an enterprise (snap shot) over a short interview session; and,
• Providing business support services.

A total of 14 trainees attended the session over four days. This group was composed of:

• 3 Business Counsellors
• 4 Business Researchers
• 4 Business Management trainers
• 3 Department Managers

In order to fully train and equip the trainees, Mthente’s facilitator initially presented best practice methods for each of the above mentioned areas and then supplemented each topic with a ‘Q and A session’ for the purposes of ensuring clarity. Thereafter, the trainees were given practical exercises to work on in order to assess their theoretical understanding. Last but not least, in order to provide the trainees with hands-on experience, especially in terms of offering business counseling, they participated in role playing.