Youth and Social Development

Enterprise Development

One of our more recent forays has been into the area of youth enterprise development. We have adopted the Street Business School training programme developed in the USA and rolled it out successfully in over five provinces. We elected to implement the eight-module programme over eight weeks, interspersed with coaching and site visits from experienced facilitators. This has an amazing impact on young entrepreneurs, motivating them to do their best and spearheading their businesses and putting themselves into positions of financial independence. We have been able to attract four donors into this space and have trained and coached 860 youth, largely women to develop their own sustainable businesses.

Public Employment Programmes

This is a space where Lima has long been active in partnership with Government as an implementing agent for youth employment projects. The two latest programmes are The National Youth Service and the Social Employment Fund, where we employ 5 700 youth volunteers over 12 districts in four provinces. The youth start off by doing a household vulnerability census over the entire district, identifying where future support should be provided. These projects provide support to mothers and clinics on the “road to health” growth monitoring programme as well as working with ECDs, schools and food security projects.

Impact
Since 2007, Lima’s role as a CWP facilitating agent has ensured effective programme implementation and administration in more than 70 municipalities across multiple provinces in South Africa. Within the programme’s activities under Lima’s agency, the CWP has provided over 44 000 beneficiaries with a living wage, valuable work experience and transferable skills and training.

Funders
The CWP is funded by the South African government’s Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

Prior Geographic Areas
KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga