INGWE Youth Development Programme – Training youth to be tomorrow’s leaders

Youth by their very nature are driven, eager and committed. They have the potential to effect change not only in their own lives, but in the lives of others. It is therefore important to engage with youth to help unlock their potential and provide an environment that enables them to become leaders of today and tomorrow.

At the same time, young people under the age of 35 face a myriad of challenges today. These challenges range from unemployment, exclusion, lack of education and training as well as the disintegration of the family and social fabric. These challenges constrain their opportunities for development and prevent youth from realising their full potential.

On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Mondi Ltd and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Gmbh have entered into a Public Private Partnership to pilot the INGWE Youth Development Programme. As part of the programme, 40 young people were selected from communities in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga based on their positive and committed characters and their active roles in communities and trained as youth leaders between November 2015 and March 2016.

GIZ prepared materials – such as an in-depth toolkit – to train the youth leaders as well as mentors in relevant skills based on an innovative approach which had been implemented in Uganda  and replicated in Kenya  in previous years. The customized training content for both, youth leaders and mentors, include:

• facilitating youth activities through animation;
• participatory approaches to organisation;
• innovative and creative thinking; and
• strategies for conflict resolution and management.

The selected youth will use the knowledge and skills that they have acquired through the training to develop projects in their respective communities starting from June 2016. These will be supported through the partnership with Mondi and GIZ.

The INGWE Youth Development Programme seeks to enhance collaboration, resource sharing and team building, hereby strengthening networking and synergies. It strives to ensure that youth play a vital role in their own development and that of South Africa.