Make it Better Youth Development Programmes

MIB offers training and support for local youth in order for them to gain the necessary skills to start their own CBO’s and to become marketable employees in government and NGO markets. MIB operates in 10 areas in Gauteng, the North West, and KwaZulu-Natal and focuses on young people between the ages of 18 and 28 years. MIB works with one community at a time and trains on average 30 youth in a 9 month programme. The course includes leadership, conflict management, team-building, communication and public speaking, and a host of other skills necessary for leadership positions. MIB focuses specifically on drug prevention and HIV/AIDS. Since 2000, 21 training sessions have been held resulting in 30-40 local programs.  These programs, which receive help and support both financial and administrative from MIB, cover areas such as sewing, farming, counselling, crime mentoring and police work.  The beneficiaries are also trained as auxiliary social workers and thus can contract themselves out to various other projects.  Over 320 young people have been trained in total.  Funding comes from different sources for each community but the Department of Social Development is a big contributor, as is the Danish International Development Agency and private donors such as Syfrets Bank.

Innovation

By training youth in specific skills they can utilize to address their community’s specific problems by possibly beginning their own project, young people are empowered to become leaders in their communities.

Effectiveness

MIB has worked in 21 communities and has near 40 projects running.  Many have been nominated for awards and some have been particularly successful at helping their communities.  320 youth have been trained and even if they are not working in their communities, they are gainfully employed elsewhere.

Poverty Impact

By training community members, each training has the potential to reach even more people than planned. A group of 30 trained youth has the potential to reach a community of 10,000 people either with poverty alleviation, crime-prevention, and drug reduction or HIV/AIDS counselling.

Sustainability

Each project area has its own funding and project life-cycle. The program runs on about R400,000 - R600,000 per year and funding has not been difficult to find in the last 6 years.  Because of different life-cycles, some beneficiaries leave their projects for permanent jobs.  The average life-cycle of a project will be 4-5 years with 50% of beneficiaries moving on to other jobs.

Replication

The project is self-replicating already. Those trained could go on to train even more young people and the program is already expanding into other urban areas as well.  Replication is a part of the model of this project.

Partnerships

• Department of Social Welfare
• Royal Danish Embassy
• Syfrets Private Bank