As South Africa continues to face an uphill battle with rising unemployment rates, the youth remains the worst affected group. Youth-led advocacy organization, Youth Captital has introduced a campaign to try and address unemployment among the youth.
Project Lead at Youth Capital, Kristal Duncan-Williams says that they take the research and evidence approach to try and bring young people’s lived experience and their voices to the table.
Youth Capital partners with existing organisations to put forward practical workable solutions.
Their recently launched publication primarily focused on making public employment opportunities work for the youth.
Looking at government programmes like the Basic Education Employment Initiative, Duncan-Williams says that if there are a lot of public funds going into short-term job opportunities then there must be workplace mentorships for young people.
She says that this would serve in ensuring that they have a core set of skills to access the other employment opportunities.
Young people really need as much help as they can to ensure the skills they have and one way we do that is through certificates, from matric certificates through to post-school certificates.
She also points out that one of the main obstacles in seeking employment is the amount of money it costs to look for employment. Adding that based on some of their findings, young people spend approximately R1000 on job-seeking alone.
The other important point that Youth Capital draws attention to in their action plan is the importance of collaboration between the public and private sector in tackling the issue of youth unemployment in South Africa.
