Activities at the Makhaza winter school are in full swing, with one of the Wednesday and Thursday morning sessions being financial literacy training presented by Capitec Bank to all the pupils. During these sessions, learners had the opportunity to share their career ambitions, and more specifically where they saw themselves in the next 10 years and what they hoped to save up for. Groups included pupils who hope to become financial risk managers, business owners, world travellers and computer scientists, to name but a few. When it came to the items they’ll be saving for, undoubtedly top of the list was a home for mom and flashy cars for themselves.
The Capitec Bank team then ran through the elements required to achieve those objectives, highlighting a key to saving is one’s ability to differentiate between what qualifies as a need and a want. The pupils shared some of their thoughts and understandings on the matter and it was determined that everyone’s needs and wants are different. For example, many of the pupils shared their views on the importance of education but whether education qualifies as a need or a want was a contested issue.
Other topics covered were drawing up a budget, making the commitment to stick to that budget and save, and opening a Global One savings account with Capitec Bank to manage that process. The session closed off with a Q & A where a few goodies were handed out.
Thanks Megan and your team!!
It’s almost becoming a yearly ritual but once again Ikamvanites feature on the Mail and Guardian’s list of 200 Young South Africans.
This year two more Ikamvanites have been honoured:
- Thobela Bixa (Former IkamvaYouth learner and now IkamvaYouth Board Member)
- Andrew Barrett (Co-founder of IkamvaYouth Gauteng and Siyakhula Education Foundation)
Last year, three ikamvanites were featured on the 2011 M&G list:
Last year we said we could barely wait for our first cohort of ex-learners to make the list and this year Thobela has started what we expect to become a trend. Onwards and upwards.
Its that time of the year again. We have reached that crucial midyear point. Umlazi started operations on the 14th of April 2012, tutoring began on the 23rd with just 18 learners. Winter School sees a number of 58 learners and 14 tutors making up the Umlazi team.
It’s been a very interesting time for us here in Umlazi, challenges galore but we made it through. When the branch started operating we sat with 18 learners for 2 whole weeks. We had to approach schools over again and convince learners face to face at assembly that we are here to help them. Our biggest ally in getting the learner number up to the target (50) has been the learners themselves. They are so happy with the help they are getting that they just seem to bring more and more of their friends.
We now sit with 58 learners in the space of 2 months and the number is set to grow with time. The great thing is that even the number of local volunteers is increasing. In the 2 weeks leading up to Winter School we have 3 new tutors from the neighbourhood come in and join 🙂
Looking forward to our first Winter School as a new branch.
HSRC: Challenges and opportunities in addressing youth unemployement seminar
What way forward?
IkamvaYouth was invited for the HSRC seminar that was held via video conference in the three major cities of South Africa (Tshwane, Cape Town and Durban). The Durban seminar was attended by Thabisile Seme (Regional Co-ordinator for KZN) and Cheryl Nzama (Branch Assistant: Chesterville branch). The Seminar took place at the HSRC Cato Manor offices near the Chesterville branch and the ikamvanites received a warm welcome from the HSRC staff.
The opening speaker for the Seminar was Dr Monde Makiwane who discussed the “youth bulge”, a phenomenon that South Africa currently faces. He explained the youth bulge phenomenon as being the “result of the cohort of young people and prime-aged adults increasing at an alarming rate –and this is not caused by the high teenage pregnancy rate S.A has but by the fact that more people were born during the early 80’s & 90”s – and since S.A is a developing country, the high unemployment rate is associated with the youth bulge.
The second speaker, Dr Miriam Altman, discussed key challenges linked with youth unemployment. The seminar raised the question of how the government and South Africa at large are to tackle the high unemployment rate that mostly affects the youth.
There are a lot of factors that affect the high unemployment rate of South Africa however the youth needs to stop relying on the government and take matters into their own hands and go out there and want that better future for themselves and families too. The right attitude always leads you to your goals undoubtedly!
Click on the following links to access the presentations:
youth_bulge_presentation.pdf
youth_employment_-_altman_-_june_13_-_2012.pdf
Cheryl Nzama
Lloyd Lungu