Are you looking at partnering with a young entrepreneur from a disadvantaged area?
Then don’t miss a pitch session for start-up businesses to showcase their business ideas to all the citizens, hosted by local township-based organisation Sweet Pea Youth Development NPC (SPYD).
“We aim to foster in our youth an innovational, entrepreneurial and transformational leadership mindset,” says Nomonde Kondile, managing director and founder of SPYD, which covers all areas between Nomzamo and Lwandle. “SPYD currently operates in the Helderberg region of the Western Cape and serves more than 600 young people through a variety of long and short-term programmes.
“Our mission is to provide a holistically supportive and enabling environment for our beneficiaries to become Independent, solution- driven and creative thinkers and fully committed implementors who will redefine the global leadership landscape.
“With the standard of education progressively deteriorating, especially in under-served communities, SPYD has experienced a pattern of communities struggling to get themselves out of the vicious cycle of poverty, substance abuse, unemployment, and high rate of school drop-outs.
“Our programme objectives includes positive character attributes, purpose-driven agency, decreased risk behaviour, improved community upliftment, increase in self-mastery, increased employability as well as entrepreneurship with an innovative skill. One of our biggest challenges in South Africa is the high risk of unemployment among young adults and school leavers.”
After leaving a committed school programme students face a stagnant job market and the challenge of falling short on “soft skills”, vocational skills and experience.
“Hence at SPYD we started a Skills Training Centre in 2022 to offer different hard skills, soft skills as well as enterprise development as one of the key skills,” Kondile said. “This programme aims to assist the beneficiaries for a permanent state to become financially free and independent. That is why on 27 September, from 11:00 to 14:00, we are hosting a pitch session at the Strand municipal offices for these start-up businesses to showcase their business ideas to all the citizens of Cape Town at large, who are willing to partner, fund and or mentor a student.
If you want to make a difference in the lives of the youth of SA don’t miss out on the opportunity. Feel free to contact Ingrid Andrews at 076 020 9575 or send an email to info.spyouthdevelopment@gmail.com or ingrid.sweetpea@outlook.com
