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YOUTH ECONOMIC EMANCIPATION PROGRAMME –YEEP
The City of uMhlathuze has identified youth unemployment and low levels of skills amongst its youth as one of the major threats to Local Economic Development, and job creation in the City. In an attempt to mitigate this challenge, the City of uMhlathuze has developed youth development programme that aims to respond swiftly.
Currently youth unemployment sits at 64% as reported by President Ramaphosa during the commemoration of the Youth Day for 2021. The current high levels of poverty and inequalities in the municipality reflect the national status quo. This is further exacerbated by lack of skills, unemployment and sluggish economic growth.
Youth Economic Emancipation Programme (YEEP) will be a vehicle use by the City in partnership with industries, companies, government entities, Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOS) and many other social partners to assist thousands of young people who are unemployed.
CHALLENGES IDENTIFIED
- Unprecedented youth unemployment
- Poor or irrelevant skills in relation to industry demands
- Poor coordination of interventions
- Lack of formalised partnerships with private sector
- Unstructured opportunity pipeline management
- No comprehensive profiling of job seekers, emerging entrepreneurs etc.
- Unstructured on-the-job training, work experiences, internships and learnerships
- Poor alignment of initiatives
- Ad-hoc solutions & lack of monitoring
YEEP KEY PRIORITIES
- Develop innovative solutions
- Demand led skills revolution
- Impact driven partnerships
- Sharing of job creation & SMME support burden with the private sector and other spheres of government
- Network of systems and people that connect the dots for young people who would otherwise not know where to start and what to do next (Best-Fit)
- Matching young people to pathways based on their skills and level of education
- Giving young people a second chance
PRACTICAL APPROACH TO UMHLATHUZE TEN THOUSAND
- Pathway based diversion programme
- At least 100 young people to be at various segments of the pipeline at a time of which the ultimate target is 10 thousand
- Each applicant to be profiled and allocated a pathway
- Each participant to the monitored along the pipeline until linked to pertinent opportunity
- The Programme Management Office (PMO) to be utilised as a clearing house for profiling and diversion
- YEEP targets dropouts to unemployed graduates
- Network of systems and companies
- Each participant to be guided in terms of appropriate pathways
- Programme relies on both internal and external partners
- Only those who have registered and profiled can participate in the programme
- Each participant to accept & commit to the agreed upon pathway
- uMhlathuze youth will benefit from the Programme
- YEEP to create single, inclusive and integrated youth economic emancipation interventions
DIVERSION PATHWAYS
