Cape Argus

Black Wolf tempers youth skills

- GIVEN MAJOLA given.majola@inl.co.za

AS SOUTH Africa seeks to recover from the devastatin­g effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, corruption and more, and with youth unemployme­nt at a high of 66.5 percent, marketing technology firm Black Wolf Youth Agency has turned to helping young people entering the labour market.

This includes increasing the skills of students entering the workforce, promoting entreprene­urship and empowering the country’s future leaders by giving them a solid foundation for working life.

Students were also able to volunteer to be upskilled in digital marketing within a work environmen­t.

Marketing technology firm Black Wolf Youth Group said that it had dedicated the past four years to youth developmen­t and training with their Black Wolf Youth Agency, a non-profit division within the company.

Officially founded in 2020, it’s the official strategic partner to the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), specifical­ly within the institutio­n’s marketing and work-integrated learning department.

The agency operates as an education solutions hub, providing training, mentorship, and placement to university students and graduates from across the country.

In collaborat­ion with CPUT, it has recently launched its marketing society, which exposes students to industry leaders through online and offline events. The recent launch of the marketing society has seen more than 170 students receive guidance and insight on their career paths.

Sven Wolf, a director at Black Wolf Group, said unemployme­nt had risen steadily over the past few years and the micro and small business sector provided a great foundation­al incubator for skills training.

“We are not unaware of the many barriers of entry to the workforce, especially in larger corporates, which is why all our programmes support the learning journey with a focus on training and developmen­t within the marketing discipline,” Wolf said.

The youth agency offers programmes in work readiness, where it partners with universiti­es and businesses to provide brand marketing challenges that form part of the curriculum and are assessed for marks; learning management systems in partnershi­p with human resource department­s, where youth are taught culturally relevant learning techniques that can be used across scalable online training platforms; and training and mentoring for graduates, who are given opportunit­ies to service real clients.

The agency furthermor­e has partnered with industry profession­als to provide free coding classes for young marketers interested in expanding their 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution) skills.

 ?? ?? STUDENTS were also able to volunteer to be part of the youth agency to be upskilled in digital marketing within a working environmen­t.
STUDENTS were also able to volunteer to be part of the youth agency to be upskilled in digital marketing within a working environmen­t.

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