Harambe Youth Employment Accelerator Partners With SiMODisA And Clickatell To Launch DigiLink
Harambe Youth Employment Accelerator Partners With SiMODisA And Clickatell To Launch DigiLink. Not-for-profit social enterprise Harambe Youth Employment Accelerator has partnered with SiMODisA and South African tech start-up Clickatell to launch DigiLink, an incubator programme that aims to up skill unemployed youth to enter the tech economy and secure long-term employment.
Evan Jones, group strategy director of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, told Venture Burn that the initiative is an excellent example of early-stage industry-level coordination in which a sector organises itself into an engine of inclusive growth. “Intra-sector partnerships have proven successful for both job and economic growth in other sectors. I’m encouraged that the digital sector is beginning to coordinate itself in the same way,” he said.
“DigiLink candidates are currently fulfilling some of Clickatell’s QA activities which we used to do in the US and Canada; proving that, not only can young South Africans do the work if mentored and supervised appropriately but also that we can re-shore this kind of work and associated revenue,” says Pieter de Villiers, Chairman of SiMODiSA and CEO and Co-Founder of Clickatell.
DigiLink Aims to appropriately skill unemployed youth to take advantage of these digital job opportunities – and re-shore lost revenue to the economy. DigiLink was also launched in Cape Town to bring young people into the tech economy and equip them for long-term employment. DigiLink is driven by an industry-level coalition focused on the mutual interests of all players to increase total investment, translate this into concrete jobs, and fill them with skilled workers.
Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator is a South African nonprofit founded to address the youth unemployment crisis with a model that connects employers to first-time job seekers. Harambee has created an employment network that helps companies hire young, first-time job seekers in South Africa in order to try to find a solution to the South African youth unemployment crisis, where approximately 40% of South Africans (15 to 34) are not employed, in school, or in any kind of training.
The organisation has developed a mobile-based network that collects job-seekers’ details, assesses candidates, offers training, and matches them to employers looking for their skill sets. By signing up for and showing up regularly to classes and training, candidates can demonstrate reliability, and thus employability. The goal is to encourage companies to take a chance on workers with no experience, often from poor households. As of May 2019, Harambee has a network of 500,000 young job seekers and 500 company partners.
