Nedbank and Global Jewellery Academy team up to foster youth entrepreneurship through incubation hubs
26 May 2021
Nedbank has partnered with community upliftment organisation Global Jewellery Academy (GJA) as part of the bank's ongoing commitment to help create sustainable solutions to South Africa's growing challenge of youth unemployment.
According to Lephoi Mokgatle, Head of Thought Leadership and Strategy at Nedbank, the bank is acutely aware of the fact that the ever-increasing levels of youth unemployment in South Africa are one of the most significant and pressing challenges that need to be overcome in order to restore the country’s economic growth trajectory. However, Mokgatle says that the increasing numbers of unemployed youth demonstrate that an alternative approach to employment creation is needed - and she contends that cultivating young entrepreneurs is such a solution.
"Prior to Covid-19, South Africa’s economic potential was already being hamstrung by the fact that close to 70% of its population aged 15 to 24 were unemployed," she points out, but the StatsSA Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the fourth quarter of 2020 revealed that just one year later, this youth unemployment percentage had climbed to 74%, which is a concern given the implications it holds for the entire country's economy should it not be addressed."
And Mokgatle argues that entrepreneurship development partnerships, like the one between Nedbank and GJA, is a key way in which this unemployment challenge can be overcome.
She explains that while educating and upskilling young people to raise their employability is a necessary and important approach to stemming youth unemployment, it still depends on businesses to create the positions that trained young people can fill - and that is a challenge in itself when economic growth has stagnated. She argues that a better, and quicker, solution is to focus less on making South Africa’s young people employees, and instead focus on transforming them into employers.
"Our country's young people are dynamic, creative and very resourceful, all of which are invaluable attributes of any entrepreneur,” she says, “but they need to be taught how to channel that creativity and ingenuity into entrepreneurial pursuits and small businesses that can deliver a sustainable income and, ultimately, transform them into job creators for their fellow young South Africans."
She says that, against this backdrop, Nedbank recognised GJA as a vital contributor to the empowerment and promotion of young entrepreneurs, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds or with physical challenges that would otherwise limit their employment options.
"GJA is doing outstanding work in areas like Lenasia, Soweto, Orange Farm, Ennerdale and other townships and informal settlements, and there is a clear potential for the organisation to expand its reach and enhance its effectiveness, with the right support from private sector organisations, like Nedbank, that recognise that potential and share it's belief in youth empowerment through entrepreneurship," she says.
To this end, Nedbank’s support of GJA includes the provision of laptops and computers for use in the various co-working spaces and incubation hubs, as well as money management advice and business support for young entrepreneurs as they develop their businesses within the GJA incubators.
"One of the most challenging impacts of Covid-19 is that it means that South Africa's economy is likely to remain under enormous pressure for some time to come, with few opportunities for the country's youth to enter into sustainable employment for the foreseeable future," she says, "but as a bank with a stated purpose to use our financial expertise to do good, Nedbank recognises that entrepreneurship is a viable solution - and we are committed to supporting and partnering with organisations like GJA to build a generation of young business owners with the potential to change South Africa’s economic future for good."
