Internships are stepping stones to jobs

BANK INITIATIVE: R165M INVESTED FOR ONE-YEAR CADETSHIPS FOR JOBLESS YOUTH

YES is a partnership between business, labour and civil society to generate one million paid work experience opportunities.

Youth unemployment has become one of the most challenging aspects of SA society, according to Nedbank CEO Mike Brown. In the first quarter of this year, Statistics South Africa released devastating figures on unemployment, showing that young people aged 15 to 24 were the most vulnerable in SA’s labour market, with a 55.2% unemployment rate.

“With youth unemployment at over 50% it is in businesses’ best interest to ensure it is doing the absolute most it can to ensure our society is successful,” said Brown.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a visit to the operations of one of its Youth Employment Service (YES) partners, the Wildlands Conservation Trust (or WildTrust) – an environmental non-profit organisation in KwaZulu-Natal.

“If you run a business in SA you need to think about the environment in which your business will operate in five years’ time. It is incredibly difficult for anyone to

run a successful business in an unsuccessful society.”

Nedbank has made the biggest contribution to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s YES initiative, investing over R165 million to provide paid one-year internships for 3 315 young people.

WildTrust

YES was launched in March last year and is a partnership between business, labour and civil society to generate at least one million paid work experience opportunities over the next three years.

WildTrust employs over 1 700 YES interns funded by Nedbank in the organisation’s operations in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KZN and Mpumalanga.

WildTrust is involved in various community-based projects that involve waste management and recycling, environmental restoration, ecotourism and small business development. The interns in the WildTrust programme are exposed to job opportunities in the green economy that have a direct impact on the coastal and inland communities they live in.

While the essence of the programme is to give unemployed young people a stepping stone to the labour market, the programme also provides some of the recruits with entrepreneurial training to equip them to start small businesses.

The bank will assess the success of its investment in the programme after reaching the 12-month mark and then consider renewing.

The author was hosted by Nedbank on a tour to the KZN WildTrust operations