Young Africa

I’m the co-founder of Young Africa (YA), a non-governmental organization focused on providing a high impact solution for youth unemployment. We are a vision-driven organization with an evidence-based and financially sustainable model for Youth empowerment. Since 2001 we have trained more than 50,000 youth in skills for employability and entrepreneurship. In the next 5 years, we envision reaching half a million youth with our unique YA Model. The recognition and network of winning the Elevate Prize would amplify our visibility and strengthen even more the credibility of our methods while helping to attract new partners to join our common mission of fighting Youth unemployment. The mentorship program and support from the Elevate team would surely sharpen the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of our operations. Connecting with the Elevate community will make us grow, learn, share and celebrate together. With the funds, we would be able to expand our YA team to further scale the role out of the YA’s model and integrate new and innovative digital solutions to support and improve the effectiveness of our impact. 

I deeply believe in the dynamic energy of young people to change and develop the world around them. The potential of Africa touched me profoundly, from my first stay onwards and I made it my home. My partner (in life and work) and I started the organisation in 1998 with a start-up capital of USD 1,500. We dreamt of being part of a bold solution for the enormous challenge of Africa’s youth unemployment. We observed that what youths need to thrive is a sense of purpose and skills set to construct a life of dignity. This became our purpose. Since then, we have built up a non-governmental organisation, currently active in seven countries. What started with two pioneers is now a confederation with well over a hundred colleagues and a unique approach to youth economic empowerment. In the next five years, we aim to expand our programmes throughout the different countries on the African continent and share our model with other organisations. I want to be a thought leader inspiring governments, donors, the private sector and communities with the power and the needs of youths in Africa. The future is in their hands!

Youth in Southern Africa face a myriad of fundamental challenges. One of the most pressing being the growing level of youth unemployment, underemployment and youth working in poverty due to a lack of skills and employment opportunities. Already 140 million people, in the region, are estimated to work in extreme poverty. Records of the Youth population create new challenges on national labour markets and reduce chances for youth to succeed. International organizations, such as the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) state that of the estimated 420 million youth aged between 15 and 35 living on the continent, approximately one-third are currently unemployed and discouraged and another third is working in vulnerable employment and underemployment. YA International is a confederation of affiliated organisations present in 6 Southern African countries with a shared mandate to provide holistic skills training for employability and entrepreneurship to economically, educationally and socially disadvantaged Youth. YA delivers skills training through an innovative franchise business model (UNEVOC-UNESCO endorsed best practice training model) with an emphasis on financial sustainability. Our integral approach addresses the multi-dimensional nature of development needs of young people in a highly synchronized to empower Youth. 

Young Africa’s uniqueness lays essentially in the two innovative concepts: the Franchise Method and the Integral approach to Youth development. The YA Franchise Model ensures the Financial Sustainability of YA Centres, an opportunity for on the job exposure to Trainees, availability of local entrepreneurial role models, participation of Young Africa Centres in the local economy as well as a cost-efficient alternative to traditional cost-intensive technical vocational Training. YA Int. as its coordination Centre built the capacity of local teams and hand the Training Centre over to them when they are well capacitated for it. The integral approach for Youth Development is based on the conviction that for young people to reach their full potential they have to develop the skills of the hand to make them self-reliant, skills of the heart and mind to live with dignity and skills of the soul to live with purpose. This is why Life Skills, Entrepreneurship Training, and talent development are integrated into all of YA Vocational Training courses. Since 2001 the organization hand in hand with its Affiliates has managed to graduate successfully over 50,000 economically, socially and educationally disadvantaged youths. 

The high rate of youth unemployment is one of the biggest challenges on the African continent which brings with it a subsequential of problems. Access to high-quality vocational training and adequate employment opportunities are prerequisites for poverty reduction, political stability, sustainable development and participation in social life. Until now Young Africa has managed to successfully make an impact in the lives of 50,000 socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged young people. In 2019, as a consequence of wanting to amplify the impact possible through the Young Africa Model, we implemented a dissemination strategy. The first steps have shown that there is an enormous interest in the YA Model and a tremendous potential for partners to replicate it. As the main coordination Office of YA is already located on the continent, our vision and strategy as the next step is to grow our team at the YA Hub, while evaluating to open strategical support offices in other regions across Africa to facilitate regional dissemination. Our partners have reported that the YA model has shown to be highly effective at their organisations, and we are therefore strengthened in believing that together we can make a large impact on empowering Youth across Africa.