So, you think you can’t do YES because your business doesn’t have the capacity to host youth internally?
Think again!
The YES turnkey solution (otherwise known as the host partner model) offers businesses a way to change lives without hosting youth internally. More and more organisations are opting to place their youth with one of the YES host partner for maximum impact.
The YES turnkey solution works with 33 YES-vetted host partners across South Africa to place youth. If a corporate cannot place youth in their own organisation, they have the option to place within our host partner.
The turnkey solution is a true one-stop solution for organisations looking to make all of the impact with none of the admin. Host partners are not only responsible for hosting youth, but also for recruiting, screening, and supervising the youth, as well as facilitating absorption on behalf of the corporate.
The benefits of the YES turnkey solution for communities are wide-reaching.
The host partners are generally NGOs working in high-impact sectors in communities, meaning youth work directly in industries and roles that build their own communities.
For example, Youth Health Africa, a YES host partner working in health care, has given opportunities to thousands of YES Youth as HIV/AIDS contact tracers and testers, bringing life-changing information about HIV/AIDS to communities and eliminating the stigma around the virus.
Not only do youth get to build their communities through their work, but they also get to spend, save and reinvest their money in the areas they are from, instead of moving to the metros for work. As chief partnerships officer, Farai Mubaiwa, puts it:
Essentially, the turnkey solution focuses on bolstering and boosting little economies all over the country, so that they can contribute meaningfully to the broader South African economy.
Besides the B-BBEE benefit companies receive in return for creating work opportunities for youth (up to two full levels on the B-BBEE scorecard), clients are reporting back on another benefit they’re beginning to extract from the YES programme – specifically the turnkey solution.
It is becoming increasingly important for our corporate partners to align their YES programmes with their overarching environmental, social and governmental (ESG) strategies and reporting, as well as their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This pressure is being placed by both investors and consumers, who are beginning to decide where to put their money based on these ESG/SDG strategies.
Essentially, the turnkey solution is about more than just creating work opportunities. Corporates are beginning to use the turnkey solution to create impact in other CSI initiatives that are important to them.
For example, one corporate partner is passionate about the environment and green. Through the turnkey solution, they created thousands of work experiences for youth in the conservation sector, through host partner such as the Africa Foundation and Conservation South Africa, who work to nurture and protect our country’s flora, fauna, and oceans all over SA (read more about YES and its partners’ work in conservation here).
Another corporate partner’s strategy is focused on improving digital literacy and education in the country, so they created work opportunities with host partner like Edunova - which provides youth job opportunities in and to enable the use of technology to enhance and improve learning for the learner, educator, and youth - and ITVarsity - an accredited online training institute specialising in preparing youth for careers in app, web and software development.
The same is being done with our host partner in early childhood development, education, health care, agriculture, manufacturing and SMME development.
Reporting on your ESG/SDG strategies, as well as your YES programme, then becomes a lot easier (and more interesting!) with this integrated approach. Regular reporting and digital dashboards provided by YES enable you to keep a close eye on the development of the youth you have invested in.
One of the most significant ways the turnkey solution positively impacts the youth is through its addressing of spatial inequality. The model was specifically designed so that YES Youth, particularly women, do not have to commute far or move away from their families – which would incur exorbitant travel and/or rental costs – to access work opportunities.
The YES quality work experience (QWE) in general aims to both enable employment and increase employability for South African youth. YES thinks beyond the 12-month QWE by providing youth with crucial documents on completion of the programme, including a CV, a reference letter and a completion certificate. These documents become evidence of work experience for future employers, effectively breaking what we call the “experience trap”.
Research has shown that experience on a CV triples the chance of a callback in the first three months of a job search. For women, a reference letter doubles the chance of her winning the job.
Each YES Youth also receives a smartphone with pre-loaded, zero-rated applications that deliver digital, work readiness and soft skills training, as well as track the youths’ socio-emotional shifts throughout the YES year. For YES, “employability” is about delivering well-adjusted, experienced and keen youth to the workforce, and that means taking a holistic approach to “development”.
Together with our partners, we’ve already created over 71,000 work experiences for young South Africans, equating to more than R4 billion being injected back into the economy directly through youth salaries.
The effects of this salary, however, are far more wide-reaching than just the individual youth. 88% of YES Youth come from grant-recipient households, and 91% have dependents, translating to a salary that ripples through families and communities.
Want to be a part of the country’s greatest private sector led impact programmes?
All you have to do is follow these easy steps:
Calculate your target today and co-create a future that works for all.
For more information on registering for and completing the YES programme, click here.