Boys In Need International

We want to train the youth in Soweto townships to learn how to grow horticultural produce like tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, melons, pumpkins, strawberries, cucumbers and lettuce. Our main aim is to alleviate poverty in these townships and assist in creating employment. We intend to partner up with large retail shops and restaurants in order to get a market for the produce. Different youth grow and cultivate the products in spaces allocated by the council to carry out the programs. Every location plants and cultivates a different product.We strongly believe that this initiative will reduce unemployment and at the same time help reduce crime as well, this is especially going to be of importance as a lot of jobs have been lost due to the corona virus pandemic.

South Africa's unemployment rate held steady at 29.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019, unchanged from the previous month's 11-year high, as the number of unemployed people dropped only by 8 thousand to 6.7 million. Employment increased by 45 thousand to 16.42 million from 16.38 million in the prior period, likely influenced by the festive season. Total employment went up in six of the 10 industries, with the largest increases recorded in community and social services (113 thousand), followed by finance (76 thousand) and transport (36 thousand). Declines were recorded in the trade (-159 thousand), manufacturing (-39 thousand) and utilities (-14 thousand) sectors, as a result of severe power cuts. The expanded definition of unemployment, including people who have stopped looking for a work, was 38.7 percent, up slightly from 38.5 percent in the previous quarter. Also, the youth unemployment rate dropped to 58.1 percent from 58.2 percent in the previous period.

Alcohol and substance abuse is also a factor that is heavily influenced by the unemployment pandemic.South Africa is one of the highest ranked countries in terms of alcohol consumed per ca pita, with the average drinking South African consuming approximately  11 liters a year.

We propose to get the youth in townships to work together and grow horticultural products and sell them to leading retail grocery  shops and restaurants. We will do this by partnering up with these stores and the local community leaders. We need land and trucks and a reliable water supply to make the project work.

The project seeks to assist the youth in the communities who are the hardest hit by unemployment. It solves the problem of drug and alcohol abuse, because as highlighted earlier depression and desperation lead to these youth engaging in substance abuse which ultimately leads to very high rates of crime. 

The youth in the Soweto locations are the vast majority who do not have jobs. This Challenge can be solved by helping and assisting these young people to grow and sell products that are in demand in retail shops and restaurants, these products are tomatoes, onions, spinach, melons, cucumbers, red and green peppers and cherry tomatoes.The more youth we involve, the less the numbers of unemployed become.

local youth working with local business to create employment in the country and by doing so fighting crime and drug abuse in communities

seed technology. These are bought locally and planted and watered by the youth till they are ready to be harvested 

the seeds such as tomatoes and spinach have been grown in back yards, This will now be done at a much bigger scale so that the produce is sold.

The unemployed youth sit and do nothing daily when they get up in the morning. This project will give them something to look forward to. instead of growing these products at their back yard for their use, they are also growing them for selling.

We intend this solution to serve 10 household in each location in Soweto in the beginning. Because almost every household in South Africa has an unemployed youth

We intend to spread the solution to other provinces of the country

shortage of land , as the projects will be carried out in urban areas, and lack of funding for operating

caring out some of these projects at the backyards of the youths homes and getting as much volunteers as possible to em pate the knowledge to the youth

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we have sociologists, psychologists , community elders , community leaders and lawyers in our team

the program is self sustaining, once the youth start generating income through their small scale horticulture, there is no need to keep funding them. We are there to monitor and distribute to them their profits

The land used is council land, and the people marketing produce are volunteers. The only money needed is to buy water tanks and irrigation equipment, once these are in place, the project is able to sustain its self through the proceeds being sold

to get assistance in getting the project off the ground