Page 13 July 2022

EXXARO’S SAYS YES TO

SUPPORTING YOUTH

EMPLOYMENT

Exxaro is partnering with the Youth Employment Service (YES) to stimulate job creation, skills development, and employment pathways for the youth in our host communities across Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

Launched in 2018 – by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the YES programme has a proven track record of developing youth employment initiatives, having partnered with over 1 400 different corporates in South Africa to create over 72 000 jobs and over R4 billion in youth salaries.

The job creation initiative will be supported by the following partners:

SME.Tax (in all host communities)

An accounting franchise with a national footprint, SME.Tax has experience in rolling YES programmes with a specific focus on integration with Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) initiatives. The SME.Tax initiative will see 50 accountants trained in 2022 to support small, primarily black-owned, businesses, to scale-up. The programme will provide the young accountants with both skills and practical work experience, while enabling small businesses who require compliance support to grow sustainably or reach a position where they can raise future capital.

LulaRides (1st Phase to commence in Emalahleni Municipality)

This experienced team has a long-established track record of training scooter drivers and developing a last-mile-delivery offering. LulaRides will train 200 young South Africans as scooter drivers who will then move into food delivery networks. The youth will benefit from a 12-month work experience, become qualified scooter drivers, and have the ability to earn additional income through their work on the various platforms.

The YES programme will provide a Monitoring and Evaluation function of all youth participating in the programme through a variety of measures, including YES smartphones, call centre interactions and impact reporting.

EXXARO HELPS MUNICIPALITIES IMPROVE

CAPACITY AND SERVICE DELIVERY

Exxaro partnered with the National Business Initiative (NBI) to support the Waterberg District and Lephalale Local Municipality with capacity building through its Technical Assistance Development (TAMDEV) programme.

The project started in 2021 with a focus on the Waterberg District municipality in support of the District Development Model (DDM). Having been identified as a job summit deliverable, the NBI was identified as the perfect partner to help deploy the technical expertise needed to build local government and district capacity, to ultimately improve service delivery.

TAMDEV offers a mentoring and coaching approach, whereby a highly-skilled retiree works alongside a mentee to upskill the individual while enhancing the municipality’s capacity to deliver on its goals. The project starts with the mentoring of the Municipal Manager and then extends to the Heads of each Directorate and ultimately the teams, which benefit from group coaching. During the process the mentors also support the municipality to build and entrench systems and processes.

In February, 15 new mentees from the Lephalale Local Municipality were inducted into the programme. In attendance were senior leaders from Corporate Governance and Traditional Affairs, Municipal Infrastructure Support Agent, the District Hub, the Bank of Southern Africa and the Waterberg District Municipality.

The programme is already having a far-reaching impact. Both mentors and mentees from Lephalale have shared how the programme has not only developed their skills but also helped to build their confidence.