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A voice for unemployed youth
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Young People Speak!
Issue 9: April 2015
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Note from the Project Director:



Read more about the Project Director on his website.
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Welcome to the 9th issue of Young People Speak!

2015 started with a flurry of activity here at YoungPeople@Work! We completed our annual internal assessment, launched our life skills and computer course and hosted our first Youth Empowerment Week in Khayelitsha.

Our hard work over the last 3 years is paying off as more and more unemployed youth enrol for our training and after care support. We are in a consolidating phase and continuously building internal capacity to meet the increasing demands from our target group.

In this issue we share some of our success stories with you! Happy reading!
Graduation of December 2014

We celebrated 6 months of hard work during our 3rd graduation on 14 December 2014. The hall was packed with students and supporters. Once again our volunteers under the leadership of our operations manager, Shirley De Jongh, outdone themselves in preparing the décor and the catering. Student speakers were full of praise for the computer and life skills training they received. A huge thanks to all who made this memorable occasion very special. A special thanks to CSD Centre for the hall, Rainbow House of Hope in Goodwood for their donation of juice and all our students and Facebook supporters who made financial contributions!
New computer and life skills course

Our first computer and life skills course for 2015 kicked off at the end of January. 103 participants enrolled for the 1st phase of the life skills course and all our computer classes were fully booked. Phase 1 of the life skills workshops covered professional job seeking skills, basic office admin, basic bookkeeping and how to access public employment. Phase 2 covered rights of employees in the workplace facilitated by Surplus People’s Project, personal development and leadership, customer relations, money management and project/event management.
Youth Empowerment Week in Khayelitsha

Our first Youth Empowerment Week attended by over 60 unemployed youth took place from 24-26 March 2015 at Site C in Khayelitsha in partnership with Whizz ICT and Surplus People’s Project. Harambee youth employment agency also joined us to provide participants with information about entry level jobs. Workshops presented were professional job seeking skills, rights of employees in the workplace and basic office admin skills. Our volunteers Mandilahke Songelwa and Doreeen Cussendala assisted participants with their CVs.

Zikhona Msawuli, 29 years old with two children born in Willowvale in Transkei had this to say: "I liked the office admin workshop. I know many things now. I want to know more now about office admin and do job shadowing in future! Thank you YP@W for empowering us in Khayelitsha!"
Mandilahke addresses the participants
Zikhona Msawuli from Transkei
Success stories – from being unemployed to permanent employment!
Mary-Ann Bergman 

After being unemployed for a very long time, Mary-Ann Bergman from Valhalla Park, divorced and desperate for a job, attended our computer and life skills course last year. She sent us this message:
"Hi dear Frank.. Great to hear from you! I'm doing okidoki.. Worked with Jen of Tedcor (at Airport Industria) for 2 weeks and then City of Cape Town phoned me.. I am working permanently for them now @ Social Development and & Early Childhood Development! Thank you for believing in me!!" 


Peter Hamman (on the left) 

Chantal Zass

Peter Hamman and Chantal Zass were both placed at Homemark stores as sales and store manager respectively. Peter was referred to us by his wife Jacoba who attended our life skills course and Chantal was a computer student. Peter was excited about his new job which is paying a higher salary with much better benefits than his previous employment! This is what Chantal had to say about her placement: 

“I will be forever grateful and wherever I go will spread the word of how YoungPeople@Work can make a difference in a person's life. I am a store manager today and can't wait to get to work in the mornings knowing this was set out for me although a year back I could never imagine I would be this happy again..."



Successfully placed at Surplus People’s Project! 


Jonathan Julius                          Ethan Cussendala

These two YP@W volunteers, Jonathan Julius and Ethan Cussendala were placed as interns at SPP. They are currently being trained in the rights of employees in the workplace and will be facilitating workshops for unemployed youth. The training is funded by the Environmental Monitoring Group and they will receive a monthly stipend. This is what Jonathan had to say after their first week of training: “"Frank, we had the BEST week of our lives!"!

 
Successfully placed at St. Johns!!
A message from Wayne Johnson, community health work educator:

"Hi Frank
Attach find the list of all students who were successful and enrolled within Community Health WORK NQF 4 program who starts 13 April 2015 until 26 November 2015. These learners are upgraded to be enrolled into the formal nursing qualification in February 2016.

Safodien Sadieka,  April Haily,  Naidoo Natasha,  De Poela Kayla,  Dippenaar Sandy, Ockhuis, Rebecka,  Lawrence Chontell,  Oliphant Annelien,  Mouton Brenda, Ntywele Mpho, Doko Philansande, Blaai Sikelelwa,  Zerf Sue-Ann.”

Thank you Wayne and St. Johns for partnering with YP@W!!
We have new volunteers!

We were recently joined by two new volunteers, Laveto Heuwel from Elsies River and Nicolette August from Bonteheuwel. Laveto is being trained as an online job search trainer to take over from Lizelle Kock who is now a full-time computer trainer at the computer training academy. Nicolette will provide support in our job placement and tracking department. She is currently also receiving training as a computer trainer. We welcome them both to the team!
Laveto Heuwel 
Nicolette August
Jacoba Hamman does job shadowing!

Jacoba Hamman is so eager to do job shadowing at YP@W she even brought her baby along! She spent a week with our staff learning more about financial administration. In February we placed her husband who lost his job at Homemark as a sales manager where he is earning more and better benefits than his previous employment! Welcome to the team Jacoba! We hope you have learnt a lot!! Baby or no baby, if you are eager to learn you will find a way...if not, you will find an excuse!
Train the Trainer course for new computer trainers

We hosted a Train the Trainer course from 16-19 March 2015. Initially planned for our volunteers we decided to open the course up to outside participants. 15 participants attended the course facilitated by Frank Julie. Participants were trained in the principles of adult learning, theories of adult learning, the training cycle, the stages of learning, different types of learners, phases of facilitation, and much more!
Gaireyah Fredericks from Paarl wrote:

 "So much more was gained through this experience. Thus this new knowledge will now be new opportunities. The space has a good spirit and I felt comfortable to receive knowledge here. There was no intimidation and distance only learning opportunities. It was informative interesting, relevant comfortable and could easily be digested. Thank you"
Meet our team! Doreen Cussendala 

“My name is Doreen Cussendala and I am a computer facilitator at YoungPeople@Work. I facilitate free online job search training at Bishop Lavis library as well as computer literacy training on our Community Investment Programme. I started volunteering at YP@W in April 2013. Before that I spent 9 years in Angola working as a teacher assistant. I attended all the life skills workshops and was trained as a computer facilitator in June 2013. What I love about my work is the opportunity to work with women from all backgrounds! Thanks YP@W!!
Online job search training back in full swing!

Our free online job search training empowering unemployed youth to search for jobs using the Internet kicked off in February. The training is provided for 2 hours over 8 sessions instead of the 4 sessions last year. We decided to increase the contact time with participants in order to better refer or place them in their preferred employment or further training opportunities. In 2014 we trained 512 participants.  
 
Kensington library 
Bishop Lavis library 
Berenice posted on our Facebook page:

“I have joined your online training. I definitely will and have recommended it to family and friends. Young and old need this. Excited today…I send my first email. Very proud. Thank u guys.”
Donations of 3G dongles

Our online job search trainers Doreen Cussendala and Nasieba Adams
Due to cable theft at libraries our online job search training have been continuously interrupted. As a back-up we decided to acquire 3G dongles which will be used as an alternative to remain online. We received donations for two 3G dongles from Dawn Malotane-Lindsey in the USA and Leonie Begbie-Cloete based in Dubai. Thank you very much for your support!!
Donation of computers to Achfa Projects

Helping where we can! We donated two computers to Mariam Oliver, director of Achfa Projects in Kensington from YP@W! Mariam is also a trustee of People First Foundation and very involved in her community, especially with unemployed youth. Each one reach one!! The reward is in the giving! 
 
King Baudouin Foundation confirms funding for 2015

After a referral by our Dutch partner, SPZA, we have received confirmation from the above donor based in Belgium, that they will support our work amongst unemployed youth in 2015. Thank you for your support! 
Audit and annual report available

Our audited financials and annual report have been completed and can be downloaded here:

http://youngpeopleatwork.weebly.com/what-is-new.html

 
     
Thank you Grandwest CSI, SPZA (The Netherlands) and HCI Foundation for your financial support to cover some programme and operational costs!

              
 
Our programmes/projects include:
  • Community Information Sessions (Sharing information about our work and that of our strategic partners with relevant groups.)
  • Youth Empowerment Weeks (Reaching out to unemployed youth in various communities over 3 days)
  • Computer and life skills course (3 month course aimed at unemployed youth)
  • Job placements and Job Mirroring (Shadowing) (Aimed at trainees who need support to be placed into jobs)
  • Leader to Leader course (10 week study session aimed at NPO leaders)
  • Rural Outreach Project (Aimed at unemployed youth in rural communities)
  • Train the Trainer course (Aimed at unemployed youth who aspire to become facilitators)
  • SMS and Facebook Alert service  (Shares information about current job opportunities)
  • Online job search training at community libraries (training the unemployed how to access employment using the Internet)
CV Bank (Stores CV’s of our trainees for prospective employers and employment agencies) 
Please support our work among unemployed youth!
YoungPeople@Work is managed entirely by volunteers who do not earn any fulltime salaries. About 70% of all current expenses are covered through self-generated income and volunteer labour! Your support is welcomed to sustain our work amongst unemployed youth! Help us to fix South Africa for those who will inherit it!!
Account name: Young People At Work
Bank: FNB
Branch: Parow
Code: 250655
Accnr. 62388828190
Type: Business Cheque
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Tel: 021 823 7837
Cel: 073 820 1543
Email: youngpeople.za@gmail.com

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