We say “yes” to job creation, we say “yes” to giving youth a start in life by helping them become job ready, we say “yes” to boosting the economy and we say “yes” to partnerships that collaborate in all these ways by saying “yes” to the Youth Empowerment Service aka YES.
The YES programme is a joint initiative by the private sector and South African Government to assist South Africa’s youth in gaining work experience through job placements. The programme aims to create one million work opportunities for unemployed black youth with the two-fold objective of transforming the lives of these youth while helping to grow the businesses in which they are placed.
The YES model makes a meaningful contribution to empowerment in areas of national priority, addresses youth unemployment issues, upskills the youth involved through their work experience and the training and development they receive on the job, and ultimately they become more employable promoting overall economic prosperity. It’s a win-win-win situation all round and we say “yes!” to that. Africa Foundation has registered as a Youth Employment Services (YES) implementor with the intention of building a substantial work placement programme.
Nonhlanhla was one of Africa Foundation’s Youth Employment Service (YES) interns, and was placed at Muchuchi Primary school to assist the school in implementing our environmental education programme, Echo.
Provisionally, this programme will enable work placements with participants working as
Community & Conservation Rangers:
Enabling the delivery of the Africa Foundation’s ECHO Environmental Stewardship Programme.
Providing land-care services, including waste management, recycling, alien plant eradication, erosion rehabilitation and a range of climate resilient interventions.
Maintaining infrastructure, removing alien plants, restoring degraded areas and being exposed to other day-to-day management activities.
Global unemployed youth aged 15-24 (2017).
South Africa’s unemployment rate.
Unemployed youth live in rural areas / townships.
Young people complete school yearly in RSA.
Youth enrolled in YES are interviewed and contracted for a 12-month period. YES positions are created separately to existing employment positions.
YES employees are paid at least minimum wage by the employing entity and given constructive, meaningful work to do to build and develop skills.
A designated percentage of the positions created are absorbed into the business after the 12 month “intern” period is completed.
YES employees get a smartphone with a YES app to complete readiness modules as well as weekly / monthly surveys to monitor progress.
The 12-month quality work experience equips unemployed youth to be beacons of hope for their families, households and communities.
Every YES member completing their year-long experience is given a CV & reference letter which gives them a 3 x greater chance of an interview call-back
Contribute to changing people’s lives
© 2023 Africa Foundation - All Rights Reserved