In response to a defined and definite national need, Momentum Metropolitan in 2018 sharpened its CSI focus to wholly concentrate on finding workable and sustainable solutions to place young people into gainful jobs. Driven by the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation, the company to date has placed 927 young people into employment. Training for a further 840 candidates is in the pipeline.

South Africa’s unemployment rate remains alarming at just over 58%, and 32% of people between 15 and 24 are not in any form of employment, education or training. With stats like these, the stakes are high so innovative and sustainable thinking is needed for successful outcomes. The Foundation knew that a broad-based, holistic approach was likely to deliver the most successful and far-reaching results.

Charlene Lackay, head of CSI at Momentum Metropolitan says, “So many stakeholders are trying to positively turn around youth employment, but it is a very complex problem and difficult to make a deep impact. Having experienced this it was important for us to implement some radical thinking to guarantee the right outcomes – placing and keeping candidates in meaningful jobs, that provided decent first-job remuneration, but to also provide the emotional support and coping skills needed by young adults going out into the working world. We started looking for proven partners who could share in our vision of facilitating the full journey to employment”.

“We needed established non-profit organisation (NPO) partners who were supporting individuals in the communities where they came from, especially when the journey to employment might incorporate healthcare, psycho-social support or sometimes safety and security in housing and childcare. A strong and a localized partner network and business development hub run parallel to the core NPO business, also contributed to the likelihood of successful placement of candidates. These hubs had the added bonus of generating enormous positivity.”

Momentum Metropolitan now has 927 unique stories of inspiration to showcase this approach. It is for this reason that the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation chose to tell the story of two people from the Rhiza Babuyile NPO partnership in Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg, in its first CSI video. The video will be launched on Momentum Metropolitan’s social media channels (Linkedin and @MomMetZA on Twitter) and will clearly validate the company’s holistic methodology in getting young people into employment.

Rhiza Babuyile (operational in Alexandra, Fisantekraal, Diepsloot and Orange Farm in Gauteng) is one of the six NPOs supported by the Momentum Metropolitan Foundation. The others are Life Choices (Cape Town), QuadPara (Kwa-Zulu Natal), Sparrow FET College (three campuses in Johannesburg), Ubuntu Pathways (Port Elizabeth) and WeThinkCode_, which includes WomanThinkCode_ (Johannesburg and Cape Town). Each organization has a different focal point meeting diverse needs in the communities they serve, however all were chosen as they have a common thread of supporting a developmental pathway to employment.

Lackay concludes, “We have highlighted two stories of success in our video but we know there are many, many more. We want to recognise the resilience and determination of both the youngsters we have supported and the hard-work put in by those who work for the organizations we support. In the end it is about hope and dignity. Without a job, it’s really hard to maintain both.”