YOUTH Empowerment, Wellness & Mentorship
“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
John F. Kennedy
According to Statistics South Africa, the youth unemployment rate is almost 60%. Translated that means 6 in 10 youth in our country do not have sufficient means of earning an income or sustaining their livelihood. That is staggering and is the reason why the House Mazibuko Foundation has included Youth empowerment, wellness & mentorship as part of our strategic objectives. We have an appreciation that the current situation is unsustainable and can be a perfect recipe for a ticking time bomb. The task of empowering our youth with resources that prepare them to choosing a career path that will still be relevant in the future or empowering them with tools and know-how to take on an entrepreneurial venture that will lead to their financial freedom is no longer a matter only reserved for parliamentary debates or armchair analysis … it is now up to all of us to ensure that we empower the youth to live productive, meaningful and fulfilling lives. In this regard we have launched the “Meet your future self” Mentorship Programme.
Meet Your Future Self
Meet your future self is a House Mazibuko mentorship programme that has been launched and piloted with Grade 11 students from Buhle Bezwe Shelter for the Orphaned and Abandoned. We took this group of students from Tembisa who have come from difficult backgrounds – with some of them having been abandoned by their parents and others whose parents are late on a day trip to the beautiful Castello del Bassonia in the Vaal overlooking the river as a way of creating an unforgettable experience that will be etched in their memories. The purpose of the day was to also serve as an inspiration on the reason why they should work hard. We empowered them with tools and tips on time management, goal setting, priority setting, choosing a career path, access to university and having established what career paths they wanted to follow, paired them with a mentor from the team who is best positioned to help them reach their desired career path and university. As part of this mentorship programme, we have also set out to introduce them to individuals who are in the same careers as those they aspire to do as part of the “Meet your future self” initiative. In addition to this, we will be searching for bursary/scholarship opportunities for them, finding out all the relevant application closing dates for different courses at all the universities, raising funds for their application fees and where necessary, registration fees. Helping them with resources that will enable them to perform their best at university. At House Mazibuko Foundation we understand how vital it is that we invest in this generation of future leaders and instilling in them the concept of giving back and paying it forward with the hope that when they are established and leading successful productive lives, that they will also pay it forward creating a culture of investing in the future generations. As we build more capacity and get more people to be involved as volunteers, donors and mentors, we will be able to take on more students from other communities onto this programme.