Fit for Life, Fit for Work

The youth entering the job market are faced with limited employment opportunities due to inadequate job creation to meet the population growth and demands for access to the economy.

Even in instances where youth actively seek employment in the job market, they face barriers to entry. They often have limited understanding of social workplace as well as technical skills to compete in the world of work. Technology and societies shape the workplace and as such there is need to be cognisant of the technological changes of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Hence it is vital that the youth be prepared to explore the opportunities presented by technological advances. The youth require a bridge to step over the various barriers to entry into the economy. The Fit for Life Fit for Work programme equips the youth with the mindset and skill set that enables them to prosper in the era of 4IR.

It is expected that Africa’s population will increase from 1.2 billion to 1.7 billion in 2030, 2.5 billion by 2050 and 4.4 billion by 2100 with the working age population, surpassing both China and India. Although Africa is increasingly taking its place on the global stage as a continent of growth and opportunity yet critical challenges remain. Particularly the need to create several jobs for the booming population, and the need to build home-grown business leaders able to access global markets and drive growth in a sustainable and inclusive manner. Technological advancement is also inevitable. It will present challenges for those that do not have the necessary skills to adapt and embrace the changes. The challenges of the 4IR can only be tackled by cooperation and transparency. The Global Youth Survey, (2018) confirm that the man skills needed for 4IR include emotional intelligence or soft skills, workplace readiness (which include technical skills and entrepreneurial skills, collaboration, engagement and lifelong learning). This presents us with an opportunity to assist the youth to harness their skills to tap into the opportunities.  The FLFW programme intends to leverage the 4IR opportunities to develop confident and skilled youth ready for the future of work.  

The FLFW programme is a holistic human centred approach to the future of work. We invest in young men and women’s capabilities to prepare them for the place of work and thereby improve their wellbeing, their living standards and their rights. The FLFW programme reiterates the importance of systems leadership in creating a shared vision to empower the youth of Africa to prepare for each of the four critical pillars required for the future of work. The programme enables the youth to acquire these essential life and work -place skills. Our vision, mission and values underpin our activities to bring out the inner strength, character and hidden potential of young African men and women through capacity building and training, and a year of support and mentoring. The programme operates at two tiers; Firstly, to provide training to young men and women from Africa to develop life skills, workplace and entrepreneurial skills. Workplace skills include technical skills. Secondly, to provide support and mentorship for the programme graduates to unlock continuous education opportunities, and gain entry to the economy, either through formal employment or through business and social enterprise start-ups. The programme also includes training on organic gardening. 

The youth entering the job market in Africa will be faced with limited employment opportunities due to inadequate job creation, lack of skills and demands for access to the economy. They need to equip themselves with the mindset and skill set that will enable them to prosper in the era of the 4IR.

The future place of work will see a time of unparalleled change. The chasm between those that have skills and resources and those that do not will increase unless stakeholders unite to address the shortage of both social and technical skills required. Our target group is youth in African where many marginalised and vulnerable youth from impoverished backgrounds have limited or no access to skills in digital technology. Our organisation adopts an inclusive approach that unite a range of stakeholders with diverse interests and backgrounds to enhance positive impact in the preparation for future place of work. Our implementing sites perform a vital role in the programme. Their geographic location within the communities provide in depth community-based knowledge of the local situational context, challenges and needs the youth face. The sites have extensive institutional knowledge and leverage their relationships with neighbouring communities, businesses, and local government.

Youth in marginalised and vulnerable communities lack access to resources and face barriers to entry into the economy.  The programme seeks to improve youth employability by empowering youth with relevant 4IR skills required for the job market and to promote youth entrepreneurship through improving their business skills and assisting in moving youth led business from the informal sector to the formal sector.

The ultimate goal is to see youth across Africa who are hopeful about their future, have life skills, workplace skills, entrepreneurial skills, computer skills, have access to technology and most importantly, inclusive and equal access to the economy.

Our solution uses big data to measure project success across all of our sites. The solution uses a data management software that track real time data and allows us to make data driven decisions. This allows us to have rapid scale across the two countries in which we occupy.

Data software drives the solution. Big data allows us to make data driven decisions. 

We also have a digital platform that connects youth organizations, youth and youth entrepreneurs across the continent. To date we have seen close to 20,000 unique users on the platform. The platform allows youth to access opportunities, actionable research for youth development organisations and thought leadership content. 

Te data management software is used in conjunction with our programs across South Africa and Namibia. 

The knowledge platform can be accessed here -https://hub.youthbridgetrust.org/

Our vision, mission and values underpin our activities to bring out the inner strength, character and hidden potential of young African men and women through capacity building and training, and a year of support and mentoring.

Please see attached impact model.

impact model

From our impact report results it is evident that we have impacted significantly on a number of lives of young men and women. Lessons learnt from the impact informs our plan for scaling up the programme. There is a need to collaborate with other partners to ensure sustainability through regional platforms and engaging of multi-disciplinary teams and role players in both the private, public, and not for profit sectors. We will also continue to engage with academia and civil society. The need for continuous adaptation, innovation, thought leadership, advocating for change, information dissemination, sharing of lessons learnt and knowledge hubs is essential. Our target number of beneficiaries is as follows:

Current number: 600 beneficiaries

Within one year of funding: 1500 beneficiaries

Five years : 10 000 beneficiaries

Of these 60 % will be females and 40 % males.

YBT has taken a stance to unlock inclusive and equal economic access and opportunities for the youth in Africa. We should not underestimate the time of small beginnings, as it laid a strong foundation and platform that could be a springboard for reaching out to the youth in Africa.

With our strong focus on committed teams that build a lasting relationship within communities we want to scale the programme without detracting or reducing the programme impact. Hence, we will rather scale through organic and strategic growth through committed networking partners than compromise on quality. YBT would be able to provide training and capacity building to empower local partners in the programme to their own needs. We also intend to expand the programme into further modules that will develop the skills needed to harness the benefits of the 4IR. Different training methods including online platforms have been explored. We will continue to build the capacity of implementing agencies and organisations and enhance the programme and resources. We plan to expand our donor base and actively develop sustainable source of income. We will continue to advocate for the preparation for the future place of work and provide thought leadership and spearhead discussions to promote collaboration. Similarly, we have established a knowledge hub to share lessons learnt with organisations, peers and potential partners. The above will be achieved through leveraging relationships to enhance partnerships and collaboration that support the programme and provide access to further education, employment creation or support for business start-ups. 

In some instances, the programme fell short of the objectives in terms of scaling and identified areas where we require improvement in capability, policies, procedures, systems and support needed for our teams, our partners and the youth. The main areas identified for further improvement are the following: continuous improvement of the quality of the programme content, systems, standard operating procedures, monitoring and evaluation, integrity and governance and human resource support and access to resources. Limited funds affect the scalability and impact of the programme.

The 4IR have a different impact on different genders, cultures and communities. Hence, one of the critical governance aspects posed is what emerging and developing countries will do to identify mechanisms that reduce inequalities and exclusion by advancing human and economic development. Thus government policies from different countries poses a challenge in scaling up the programme. Also accessibilty to rural areas poses a challenge in terms of resources and infrastructure and technological trainings.

Youth Bridge Trust views financial sustainability as a dynamic and continual process. By developing a sustainability plan, our finances should become more secure which means an increased focus on our real work. We can do more of what we set out to do, because our focus is on the mission, not just on day-to-day survival. We have developed a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation which assists in tracking activities vs budget.

We will  also create a clear strategic plan that defines our social mission thereby allowing us to build programmes, community support, and collaborative partnerships that closely align with our mission and help us overcome the challenge of establishing sustainability in the short to long term. YBT will seek strong collaborative partnerships in order to ensure continued operations. Collaborating partners will also assist with identifying new funding streams or other resources to continue operations. Partners can also augment our operations to reduce or even eliminate some expenses. We also seek to secure additional funding revenues to sustain and/or expand operations from the donor community.

We have developed a knowledge hub platform to assist us in identifying new partners for capacity building, networking and sharing of good practices from different countries in Africa.

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Full time staff:   6

Part time Staff ( implementing sites)  20

Contractors/Consultants: 4

Total: 30

Our team has over 100 years worth of experience in working in the youth development sector this positions us well to deliver on the project and scaling of the solution. 

We currently work with local government agencies such as the National Youth Development Agency South Africa

• Google For Nonprofits
• African peer review mechanism (African Union) 
• University of Wits (South Africa)
• Ford Foundation (USA)

The FLFW programme offers knowledge and abilities that support success in creating and building a workplace opportunity or idea for business start- ups for the youth. The aim of the programme is to empower young people to make positive life choices and fulfil their full potential. The FLFW cycle is as follows;

Main activities

• Recruitment of participants,
• Training
• Post training support for programme alumni (job placement, job finding support, interview coaching and mentoring, CV writing skills and editing providing job references, Computer skills support, psychosocial support and reproductive health support services)
• Strategic partnership development

The Recruitment Process

The process of recruitment involves other stakeholders in the form of councilors, libraries, churches, other NGOs, the community and local media.

Training

The FLFW is a six-week life- and work-skills programme offered at two tiers:

Tier 1; provide training to the youth to develop life, workplace and entrepreneurial skills. Workplace skills include technical skills.

Tier 2; provide support and mentorship for the programme graduates to unlock continuous education opportunities, and gain entry to the economy either through formal employment or through business and social enterprise start-ups.

We aim to source funding through grants provided by foundations. We intend to also work with local development agencies within the region such as teh African Development Bank but not name a few. We also intent to raise impact investment funding in order to utilize large funds to create sustainable jobs. 

We want to build Africa's future which we believe is found in it's young people. For that reason we are applying to showcase our current impact but also to highlight the potential opportunity for us to scale our solution across Africa. 

As a growing organisation we would require partners who can assist us in achieving our vision and mission.

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We work with youth in South AFrica and Namibia who are refugees, our initiative and solution has already assisted hundreds of refugee youth that are in South Africa and Namibia. We will use the funds to continue to support youth in the region and scale the work to help more youth in refugee camps.

Of the youth that have been impacted by our solution 69% have been young women particularly those living with HIV. Our solutions seek to empower the vulnerable and marginalized young women in South AFrica and Namibia of which thousands have accessed jobs, educational opportunities as well started their own businesses.

WOMEN:69%
MEN:31%