From the E Squared Social Entrepreneurship Desk
By increasing our impact and ensuring alignment to E Squared’s mission, the Social Entrepreneurship (SE) team believes that by empowering PBO’s (Public Benefit Organisations) as responsible organisations and providing grant funding for their youth-focused entrepreneurial programmes, these PBO’s will become catalysts for economic development, transformation and social upliftment in South Africa.
We are excited to share that we have identified and partnered with the following four organisations to make an impact on attacking poverty and addressing youth unemployment:
RLABS – an award-winning SA non-profit established in 2009 in Bridgetown, Cape Town that creates spaces where young people can be impacted, empowered and transformed through hope, technology and innovation, training and economic opportunities.
RLabs developed Zlto, a blockchain-based technology designed to provide rewards to young people, redeemable in selected retail outlets for core-use items in exchange for community service, self-improvement, or other types of good works.
E Squared’s partnership with Rlabs and Zlto is to strengthen the platform, and ensure by year 3, at least 100 000 youth are onboarded to the Zlto platform and actively accessing micro-jobs whilst also promoting the spirit of responsible and good citizenry.
Learn to Earn (LtE) – over the last 30 years has expanded its work through the provision of 16 market-relevant skills training across 5 training venues in the Western Cape to unemployed youth; their development philosophy being to give ‘a hand up – not a handout’. By paying a nominal training fee, students become contributing partners in their own development and have a greater sense of ownership in the change of their circumstances.
E Squared has partnered with LtE’s Ground Up Training Academy over the next three years to train and equip 300 unemployed youth in becoming entry-level baristas and technical skills to repair and maintain coffee equipment for an additional 50 youths.
Rhiza Babuyile (RB) – established in 2005, RB addresses the fundamental developmental needs of individuals by providing basic socio-economic services such as healthcare and education, placing a strong focus on entrepreneurialism. They are focused on increasing the income earned by its beneficiaries, and the growth of the local township economy.
E Squared has committed to a three-year partnership with RB on an innovative model called the ECD Centre of Excellence Model (CoE) to be implemented in Diepsloot, Gauteng. The model’s long-term vision is to ensure quality early childhood education as a foundation for successful future learning, whilst creating an enabling environment for early childhood facilities in township communities in the short-term. Over the three years, 100 young unemployed women will be trained to become qualified Early Childhood Development (ECD) teachers ensuring placement and infrastructure development for the centres.
Buhle Farmers Academy (BFA) – meaning “good or beauty”, was established in 2000 as a training farm in Delmas, Mpumulanga. Their main purpose is to train people in the business of farming and the academy’s mission is to enable new and emerging farmers to establish viable farming businesses through effective skills training and support, in order to alleviate poverty and promote sustainable economic development and resource use in South Africa.
E Squared’s partnership with BFA will, over the three years, support 180 young women in becoming semi-commercial farmers, as well as enable BFA to become a smart campus. This will include refurbishments to training rooms and female accommodation, procurement of smart devices and a learner management system, and include the introduction of new farming methodologies in the curriculum.
