Orange Farm Youth Social Enterprise Programme

Representatives from the following stakeholders held a meeting to brainstorm Orange Farm Youth Social Enterprise Programme:

• JET Education Services, who are leading the research
• Catholic Institute of Education, on behalf of the St Charles Training Centre
• Community Works Programme
• Orange Farm Advice Office
• Junior Achievement
• Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator

The other key stakeholders who were not represented at the meeting is the City of Johannesburg and MSC (who operate the trade skills centre).

The initiative will support selected youth to explore and engage in social enterprise activities over 15 months.

The criteria for initial selection will be as follows:

• Age range : 18-28
• Grade 10+
• Be in one of the following: Community Works Programme, a Youth Leadership position in a CBO, or have been trained at one of the skills programmes through MSC or the St Charles Training Centre.
• Some existing attempt to generate income through survivalist/micro-economic activity.

Over the next two weeks each of the organisations will be talking to young people who meet these criteria to see if they are interested.

An Harambee Opportunity Briefing session in Orange Farm will be run in mid-October for those young people who have said they are interested. This will be followed immediately by a work seeker support session process by Harambee to identify youth that best match the requirements of the programme.

A total of 90 people will be selected to participate.

Junior Achievement will then run an introductory 5-day “selling ginger beer” programme to further identify people who are best suited to the programme. At the end of this introductory programme, the final group of 60-70 participants will be selected (30-35 per group x 2 groups)

Following the final selection, Junior Achievement will run a 20 week programme to support people investigate opportunities in the community to a) meet need and b) set up a service/business that can generate income. This will be followed by six months support in sustaining the initiative, including through mentorship support.

The Orange Farm Advice Office staff, who have established a plethora of social economy activities on their site, will also be engaged in supporting people to understand opportunities they see within the community waiting to be realized.