youth@WORK Named an ASEB 2026 Top 5 Finalist
We are proud to share that y@W has been named a Top 5 finalist for Startup Service Provider Champion of the Year at the ASEB 2026 Awards.
This recognition celebrates the work we do to help startups and small businesses build the capacity they need to grow, while creating work experience, skills and career pathways for young South Africans.
Youth Unemployment Is Not Only a Jobs Problem. It Is a Small Business Growth Problem
South Africa keeps asking the same question: How do we get more young people into work?
AI Won’t Replace Your Thinking. Unless You Let It.
One of the greatest opportunities we can offer young people isn’t simply access to knowledge, it’s access to people who challenge the way they think.
The Story Behind R1 Billion in Motion
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of sharing the youth@WORK story at our Youth in Action – R1 Billion in Motion Youth Day celebration. As I prepared my speech, I realised that while we often talk about the numbers, we don’t always pause to reflect on the journey behind them.
System change starts with someone’s first job
Gugu Nonjinge’s recent Daily Maverick article – Beyond the bootstrap narrative: Reframing youth entrepreneurship in SA as a social justice imperative – makes an important point. South Africa cannot workshop or incubate its way out of youth unemployment if the systems that shape opportunity remain fundamentally unequal.
Rethinking Youth Employment in South Africa
We’ve been looking at youth unemployment the wrong way.
For a long time, the response has been to build programmes. And to be clear, those programmes matter. They’ve created access, opened doors and changed individual lives. But when you step back and look at the scale of the youth unemployment challenge and the data in our report, it becomes clear that programmes alone are not enough. South Africa does not have a youth aspiration problem.