Fighting the Scourge of Youth Unemployment - one of SA’s Burning Platforms.
Amy Foundation
One of our biggest challenges in South Africa is the high risk of unemployment among young adults and school leavers. After leaving a committed primary school programme, students face the stagnant job market and the challenge of falling short in ‘soft skills’, vocational skills, and experience.
In an effort to address this challenge, the Amy Foundation developed the Youth Skills Development (YSD) programme which aims at providing skills to enable youth from disadvantaged backgrounds through a holistic training programme. The programme targets youth between the ages of 18-35 who reside mainly in these communities: Nyanga, Gugulethu, Phillipi, Bonteheuwel, Athlone and Khayelitsha, in Cape Town. The YSD programme has been running since mid-2015 but is constantly evolving in response to the macro environment.
“The long term impact that we are striving for is that we will have a more informed Youth population who make positive life choices, who are role models in their communities, either by way of securing employment, studying further or starting their own small businesses, for others to see and emulate.”
The YSD programme offers a 3-month free training course in the following disciplines, most of which lend themselves to entrepreneurship:
• Hospitality
• Sewing, Craft & Design
• Beauty & Wellness
• Woodwork
• Job Readiness/Soft Skills
• Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
The training is offered at the Amy foundation centre in Sybrand Park, which has a fully fitted teaching kitchen, bistro, conference room, beauty classroom/salon, woodwork/technical skills classroom and fully fitted sewing room.Upon completion of training, YSD capitalizes on partnerships with strategic Development Partners for access to job-shadowing, internships, leadership, employment opportunities and product donations. YSD students are granted the opportunity for internships and potential jobs at companies such as the Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa, Relate Trust, The Grand, The One&Only, Quay Four, Shell and International Hotel School.
Long-lasting relationships with the alumni are formed and contact is maintained with them, to offer coaching and mentorship beyond the duration of the basic 3-month programme. After the 3-month basic programme, Amy Foundation offers a further 3-month incubation period mainly for the advanced learners who want to start their own small businesses. Even beyond this, we maintain contact with our business learners and other learners return to the programme from time to time.
Core features:
- To remain current and relevant, the YSD programme is adaptable, and demand driven. This is facilitated by development partners and the modular approach to the training curriculum. An example of the adaption of the curriculum was the inclusion of Traditional Wear in the Sewing curriculum, to meet the demand.
- Transportation is provided for learners from the Foundation and to interviews, internships, and other opportunities and YSD further provides bridging loans for one month until learners get their first pay-check.
- After completion of the basic programmes, YSD offers a further 3-month incubation opportunity for budding entrepreneurs and provide access to markets for those who achieve the required quality standards. Learners also can become a service provider to the Amy Foundation and feature their products in our online store.
- YSD has also recently established satellite hubs in various communities where learners come from, in collaboration with alumni who have started their small businesses and have venue space for us to use.
- Further to this, the programme is embracing the train-the-trainer approach, where selected alumni are identified and supported to train others in their communities.
• Since the inception of our YSD programme, 1000 learners have been impacted.
• The cumulative database stands at 994, as of end July 2020, this would be higher had it not been for the COVID-19 lock-down.
• 842 (85%) students have been placed in employment, business, or study opportunities.
• In 2019, over 100 of our current learners were linked up with internship/learnership opportunities through development partners.
• To date, 554 learners have gone through our Hospitality programmes, 211 through our Beauty programmes and 142 through our Sewing, Craft & Design programmes.
• Support is being given to 35 of our small entrepreneurs/businesses to take them to the next level.
• Holistic approach of measuring real outcomes –YSD measures the success of the programme by the number of learners trained, number of learners placed in employment opportunities, how many have decided to study further and, how many have started small businesses.
- A dynamic Managing Director and Management team.
- The availability of infrastructure which allows for practical vocational training and not just theory.
- Collaboration with development partners and long-term funders.
- Facilitators who are professionals in their fields and are passionate about developing, coaching learners.
Challenges/barriers
- Infrastructure capacity, but off-site workshops and e-learning, mitigate this barrier.
- Funding is always a consideration, however, income-generating activities, e.g., hosting tour groups, product sales, an annual Gala dinner and an annual cycling event, support funding efforts.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has been a big challenge for businesses in general, including some of our Development Partners. This will impact the number of opportunities that we will have for our current learners and necessitates sourcing additional Development Partners.
Moving forward
The only constant is change and so the Amy Foundation continues to reinvent itself and the way it does business. In addition to on-site workshops, YSD will focus on e-learning, off-site workshops, new collaborations, new product development etc. This all augurs well for future scaling up of our programmes.
Resources
Website : www.amyfoundation.co.za
YouTube Channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO5offeJ_8lZh4gyLFwGM3Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Run13Gxu7tM&t=23s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDR3yg4_9bQ&t=10s
https://www.instagram.com/amyfoundationsa/
https://twitter.com/AmyFoundationSA
https://www.facebook.com/AmyFoundationSouthAfrica
Contact details for Amy Foundation
- WhatsApp: + 27 73 557 2004
- Landline : + 27 21 447 1690
