[panel panel-style="transparent" title="HARAMBEE%20YOUTH%20EMPLOYMENT%20ACCELERATOR"]South Africans from the most marginalised backgrounds rarely get the chance to come into contact with potential employers. This is for multiple reasons: the social and geographic legacy of apartheid, the poor quality of schooling, high cost of transport, limited skills and experience. Experience is the determining factor in how likely a person is to gain formal employment, locking out millions of youth caught in the vicious cycle of not having experience and not being able to access it.
Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator helps thousands of young South Africans to get and keep their first job, in a way that simultaneously addresses the needs of employers and employees. Through extensive consultation with employers around their recruitment needs and challenges faced in hiring young people, Harambee has structured a rigorous bridging programme that directly addresses these needs and offers employers the option of tapping into all or parts of the value chain.
Tabea Nong, a single mother from Diepkloof Johannesburg, is a university graduate with an honours degree but has battled to find a full-time permanent job.
“Harambee changed my life by giving me the opportunity to get employment, to be able to give my son a better life. The bridging experience introduced to me concepts that I was aware of but had not yet internalised, like maintaining a positive attitude, being disciplined and effective communication skills," she says.
Driven by its social impact objective, Harambee recruits South African work-seekers between the ages of 18 and 34 from marginalised communities, who have at least completed Grade 10 and are not studying full time.
“The Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator is one of the Jobs Fund’s flagship projects. The Fund’s objectives are well-aligned with the work that the programme is doing, that is to focus on the upliftment of youth and women”, says Najwah Allie-Edries, Head of The Jobs Fund.
After only 10 months at Imperial Health Sciences, Tabea was promoted to a Compliance Coordinator.
“My highlights so far have included flying for the first time, spending a month in Liberia on a training programme and being called out in front of the whole company by the MD as someone to watch," she beams.
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