Youth in South Africa continue to be disadvantaged in the labour market with an unemployment rate higher than the national average. According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the first quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate was 63,9% for those aged 15-24 and 42,1% for those aged 25-34 years, while the current official national rate stands at 34,5%.

As a response to this challenge, YouthCan! - the global partnership for youth employability - was launched in 2017 by SOS Children’s Villages and five global partners from the private sector to promote decent work for young people without parental care or at risk of losing it.

YouthCan! is a global partnership programme that supports young people at SOS Children’s Villages to successfully manage the transition from school to independent adulthood and into the world of work. This initiative reinforces the importance of investing in youth education, training, and skills development and it caters to young people between 15-25 years of age. Where possible, young people from local communities and other childcare organisations will also be offered the opportunity to join the initiative.

Since the programme started in 2017, close to 6000 young people have participated in our mentorship, career guidance, job preparedness, life and soft skills development, professional skills, on-job orientation, entrepreneurship training, internships/apprenticeship, and job shadowing activities. From these participants, close to 300 young people have been successfully placed in jobs.

YouthCan! Objectives

Create direct opportunities for young people to be more employable by empowering them with knowledge and relevant skills and offering them opportunities based on market needs and their capabilities.
Build an action-centered practitioner network of existing and new corporate partners to visibly increase the measurable impact of corporate partnerships on youth unemployment and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Grow the platform of corporate partners who come together for an increased impact on youth unemployment through sharing and leveraging successful initiatives and market expertise.
Exchange learnings to scale up successful initiatives and working models, making good practices replicable and increasing the joint impact.
Create evidence-based research that can be shared to improve youth employability practices on a national and on an international level.
Inspire and invite other global and local actors to replicate the model.

YouthCan! Covers these areas of work

Orientation: Volunteers/ employees act as mentors for guidance and job orientation; for example, by providing soft skills training.

Access: Volunteers render information and orientation about application and recruitment procedures, and train participants in critical skills, i.e.: CV-writing, computer skills, language development, interview training, goal setting, emotional intelligence, and career planning.

Professional and technical training: Vocational training, tertiary education, career development. Training on ICT skills or language skills, guidance on virtual calls, and messages exchange.

Exposure: Expose young people to professional work environments, i.e.: Internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing and other opportunities that facilitate the practical experience.

Platforms and information: Job fairs, job and business networks and access to other relevant stakeholders

Entrepreneurship training: Entrepreneurship and seed funding are options to be explored.

Motivation: Share your employees personal and work experience through webinars, video recording on a day in your job, etc. Inspire young people to join the job force.

Readiness: Volunteers support SOS young people in preparing for an interview, review and advise on their CVs and motivation letters, share templates, recreate a job interview, or train on emotional intelligence and career planning.

Intelligent volunteering: Share your skills in a certain domain that relates to your job: administration, accounting, logistics, secretariat, etc.

YouthCan!

Partnership for youth employability

YouthCan! Objectives

YouthCan! Covers these areas of work