Tackling unemployment by empowering our youth
South Africa’s mammoth unemployment challenge that faces mostly young people needs innovative and sustainable thinking to make a visible difference. We’ve empowered our Corporate Social Investment team through the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation to concentrate on finding workable and sustainable solutions to place young people into gainful jobs. Our broad-based, holistic approach is delivering successful and far-reaching results.
Our partners
We care about youth unemployment that’s why we prioritise projects and partners that support their journey to employment. This means we focus on programmes from partners where there's a clear, intentional flow from recruitment, technical training, psychosocial support and self-development to job placement, entrepreneurship, and career or business mentoring and support.
Life Choices Coding Academy
Based in Cape Town, Life Choices gives young people, between the ages of 18 to 26, from the Cape Flats and surrounding areas the opportunity to learn coding while undergoing personal development through a 12-month long boot camp.
To date 161 young people have been trained and 83 placed in jobs; the average salary of a student upon job placement is R8 000.
QuadPara Association of South Africa
The QuadPara Association of South Africa (QASA) was established in 1978 by a group of quadriplegics and paraplegics in Gauteng. The NPO has a membership of over 7 000 quadriplegics and paraplegics and has a regional presence around the country. The QASA Work Readiness Programme (WRP) focuses on providing theoretical, practical hard and soft skills and an overall foundation in a career in office administration.
To date 85% of young people trained have been placed in jobs and the average salary of a student upon job placement R6 772.73.
Rhiza Babuyile
In 2018, Rhiza Babuyile, in partnership with the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation established the Jobs ‘n Jozi programme. The programme offers a combination of skills training, learnerships and enterprise development at 3 sites in Diepsloot, Tembisa and Orange Farm. The programme also supports the employment of youth through a recruitment and placement programme, while also providing mentorship and career support. Jobs ‘n Jozi supports information technology (IT)-end user, fashion and design, call center agent training, information technology (IT) technical support and early childhood development.
To date 1 665 young people have been trained and 1 187 young people were placed in jobs.
Ubuntu Pathways
Ubuntu Pathways was established in 1999 in the Zwide township of Port Elizabeth. The programme follows a market-driven training model, training youth in various trades depending on the type of job opportunities that are available. Their strongest placement partnerships are in the tourism, hospitality and FMCG sectors.
To date 940 young people have been trained and 629 placed in jobs. The average salary of a student upon job placement is R3 500.
Sparrow FET College
Sparrow Schools was established in 1990 with a mission to prepare children and youth with learning difficulties to become income-generators through comprehensive education, vocational skills training, and intensive learner support initiatives. The Sparrow FET College was established in 2010 to address the skills deficit in South Africa and extend the opportunities available to graduates from the Sparrow Schools.
WeThinkCode_
WeThinkCode_ was founded in 2016. Their approach is to work within an eco-system of public and private partners to source and train world-class African digital talent. The programme operates on a model of recruit, capacitate and place. In 2019, they developed the WomenThinkCode_ initiative to address the lack of gender diversity in their value chain, from recruitment to placement.
Lulaway
Lulaway is a pioneer in sustainable high-impact youth employment solutions. To date, Lulaway has placed over 42 000 candidates into work opportunities nationwide and has over 750 000 screened and profiled job seekers on its state-of-the-art job seeker portal.
Agri Enterprises
Agri Enterprises was established in 2016 by Agri SA to create and implement innovative solutions to commercial agriculture. Enterprises function as the commercial arm of Agri SA. Enterprises has 5 business units that focus on: Strategy and operations; agricultural impact fund; training and development; market innovation; and research and development.
New Partnerships
Primestars
Primestars utilises an “educational theatre of learning” model to enhance the educational process particularly for disadvantaged youth in South Africa. Films and TV shows are an integral part of any learner’s life and therefore introducing short films into the curriculum creates an entertaining and enjoyable way to process and retain information.
We have embarked on a partnership with Primestars through the Step Up 2 A Start Up programme. The programme aims to inspire and educate school-going learners about the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and the exciting opportunities that exist therein. The programmes focus on career guidance, financial literacy, mathematics & science and entrepreneurship.
