by Malose Kekana

Creating jobs and developing skills among South Africa's youth are the chief objectives of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, which has spent about R470-million on 61 projects over the past two years.

Umsobomvu is a Nguni word that means "a rising dawn". The fund was established in January 2001 with a mandate to create a platform for job creation, skills development and transfer for the South African youth.

The fund's activities are spread across three programmes.

• contact, information and counselling
• skills development and transfer; and
• the youth entrepreneurship programme.

The contact, information and counselling programme has been allocated R200-million, the skills development and transfer programme has received R300-million and R500-million has been allocated to the Youth Entrepreneurship programme.

Over the past two years, the organisation has been building infrastructure, refining policies and implementing pilot programmes and methodologies. The fund believes it cannot solve youth unemployment alone, but it is confident that its carefully chosen programme models and partnerships with the private sector, government and other key stakeholders will make significant inroads in tackling one of South Africa's major challenges.

To this end, the fund has two major programmes that form part of its Skills Development and Transfer Programme:

• School to Work is designed to transfer high-level technical skills and to facilitate work experience for unemployed matric and tertiary graduates. It also aims to introduce black youth into previously inaccessible careers, such as IT and accounting.

• Youth Service focuses on unemployed youth who have no tertiary education, enabling them to acquire the skills, competencies and experience they require to achieve economic independence. This is done through a structured learning programme and accredited through a SETA.

The fund has estimated that 540 000 young people will use the youth line and Internet portal over the next three years, while it anticipates more than 180 000 young people will visit the advisory centres that will be located around South Africa. The first 12 of 33 planned advisory centres have already opened in the provinces of Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal, Limpopo, Northern Cape, North West, and Western Cape.

The Youth Entrepreneurship Programme has three major projects:

• enterprise funding;
• micro-finance; and
• business development services.

Enterprise funding recently launched the FNB-Momentum-UYF Progress Fund, and it complements the Franchise Fund, launched in partnership with Business Partners.

Micro-finance is focused on entry-level investments, and its pilot projects with the Nations Trust and Nicro Enterprise Finance are funding micro-enterprises and co-operatives.

The business development services voucher programme helps young entrepreneurs to access quality business support from approved service providers through vouchers, ranging in value from R1 500 to R23 000.

The Take it to the People project was launched recently to create locally based economic opportunities for young people. The project focuses on income generation and self-employment for young people living in 21 urban and rural areas identified as significant "poverty pockets".

The project aims to developlocal solutions to unemployment by investigating options for youth development in the form of micro and small businesses and co-operatives. It will work in conjunction with local municipalities and donors. - BuaNews

Malose Kekana is the chief executive of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund

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