In honour of Women’s Month last month, YES held a special webinar focused on the critical impact investments in female creativity can have on business. Led and driven by some of South Africa’s best industry movers, the webinar covered how corporate South Africa has a responsibility to not only drive gender-neutral business practices but also support and capacitate women within the workforce. In this blog, we’ll cover the top take-outs from the webinar, as well as examples of women YES Youth excelling in their industries.
Host:
Thithi Nteta, former deputy CEO of FCB Joburg
Panellists:
Farai Mubaiwa, chief partnerships officer, YES
Alexis Searle, head of stakeholder engagement and partnerships, Metropolitan GetUp
Erica Kempken, director, Youth@WorK
Bridgette Mogoboya, YES Youth at the Youth Content Collective, Ulusha Alexandra Hub
Nonzukiso Mgqeba, YES Youth, Textile Academy, Genesis Hub, Saldanha
The importance of a women-focused strategy
Enabling a meaningful platform for women within the workplace through the implementation of non-gender biased practices has become critical to the progress of our country’s labour force culture and growth. It has been proven that capacitating the role of women in industries gives greater opportunity to better business judgement, productivity and general practices.[1]
The webinar discussion
“When Jacinta [Erica’s business partner] and I joined to start Youth@Work in early 2019, the question really wasn’t ‘who is going to let us join?’ – it is ‘who is going to stop us from fulfilling our passion and fulfilling our dream’” – Erica Kempken, Youth@WorK director.
Erica Kempken shared case studies that prove the importance of giving women a critical first chance.Youth@Work invested in a number of youth that share the interests of giving back to communities and breaking barriers, especially as young women. The following youth are only two of many other success stories.
Nonjabulo Zikhali, owner of Happy Stars Football Club
Nonjabulo used her salary to start her own soccer team with the intention to create progress in her community, which is ravaged by drug and alcohol abuse. Her commitment to seeing the young men in her community thrive despite the difficulties of their environment has been a success and demonstrates that investing in a woman’s dream could equal investing in her community.[2]
Vuyelwa Molthar Mnisi, owner of Vee’s Junk Cookies & Cakes
Like many others in her community, limited work opportunities and resources blocked Vuyelwa from pursuing further studies after matric. After her YES programme, she found an alternative way to learn, grow, and make a living through entrepreneurship. She saved up her salary to start her business once her programme ended. Her YES modules and experience played a great role in this decision. They equipped her with the skills and knowledge to create a successful business, all while working from home.
From business owners to community servers, the young women from Youth@Work showcased in this webinar are examples of the exemplary youth who have grabbed the opportunity enabled by forward-looking companies who believe in investing in young women.
Youth Content Collective
The Youth Content Collective (YCC) grows talented creatives into gig economy entrepreneurs and delivers to business community’s demand for fresh, authentic creative assets. YCC has positioned itself as an organisation that invests in an underfunded, under-capacitated industry and in undervalued young groups of creatives as well. YCC houses and showcases some of South Africa’s best raw and authentic talent and 55% of these creatives are young women.
YCC focuses heavily on giving youth who are already able to create content access to the market. The aim of the programme is to achieve the following: integrate participating youth – as their own entities – into an established supply chain, absorb youth into existing businesses or establish youth as solidified freelancers in the gig economy through digital platforms.
The skills and work programme include the following learnings:
- Understanding the creative industry landscape.
- How to be a successful content creator and monetise creative assets and services.
- Soft skills and understanding the role and responsibilities of creatives in the industry.
- General business skills.
- Photography, videography and other skills applicable to provide the youth with the skills to become successful freelancers/entrepreneurs.
YCC puts women empowerment at the core of their organisation’s mission. They are also aligned with other initiatives that drive the same course. The LeadHERship campaign by Pizza Hut is providing over 100 young women from marginalised communities with the skills they need to be successful in the job market, and YCC is facilitating the youth within the creative sector.
The end of a YES Youth’s journey
A key topic covered was the end of a YES Youth’s journey. Generally, there are four recorded pathways post-YES.
- Absorption into their entity where they performed their 12-month quality work experience
- Youth find employment at a different firm, both contract and permanent. Currently, 45% of YES Youth have reported that they are employed.
- They decide to further their studies.
- They start their own businesses.
The multiplier effect
One of the main goals of the YES work experience is to create a multiplier effect. Investing in one job that can create ten more. YES is a critical component for both the short- and long-term solution for the unemployment crisis we face in the country. Driving youth employment within future-proofing sectors can result in the creation of skilled jobs and can also encourage greater levels of entrepreneurship.
With many YES jobs being created in future-facing industries, YES is key to positioning South Africa for the future. These are industries that will help South Africa leapfrog up the world ranking of key sectors.
YES Youth share many qualities. One of the most significant is their leadership skills. YES partners have cultivated a culture of excellence in the implementation of their YES programmes. This has made it more possible for corporate SA to collectively
work towards common goals that prioritise inclusivity and progressive practices, regardless of the difference in sectors.
How YES sees the stats
The current expanded unemployment rate for women dropped 1.1% from 49% in Q1:2022 to 47.2% in Q2:2022 (Statistics South Africa, Quarterly Labour Force Survey). The expanded unemployment rate for women is still higher than the national expanded unemployment rate. Nearly half of South Africa’s women are unemployed, which is staggering, especially given that 42% of the country’s households are women-led.
58% of YES Youth are young women. They are being trained to become future professionals, managers, entrepreneurs, leaders and industry disrupters. We’re placing them in forward-looking industries such as drones, creative, global business services, urban farming, green energy and conservation to name a few. These salaries build families and even communities. 88% of YES Youth come from grant-recipient households, 91% have dependents.
“When you invest in a woman, you’re not only investing in her, but in her family and more than that, in her community as well” – Farai Mubaiwa, YES chief partnerships officer
#SayYES and use the winning formula
Do you see your cooperation driving this change and initiative? Are you looking into gaining levels on your B-BBEE scorecard, achieving your Social Development Goals or integrating your environmental, social, and governance strategies? Then calculate your YES target now.
Join over 2,200 companies co-creating a future that works.
[1] https://blogs.imf.org/2018/11/28/economic-gains-from-gender-inclusion-even-greater-than-you-thought/
[2] https://www.oecd.org/dac/gender-development/investinginwomenandgirls.htm
Amendment to the Gazette