Empower youth through education in S.A

The children of South Africa represent 36% of the total population. 66% of these children live in the poorest households, which means their household income is less than R10,009 per year (less than $1,000 per annum). The schools that these children attend are often very poor performing township schools. Year in year out, less than half of South Africa’s children matriculate, which means they face unemployment or menial work.  

For many children in South Africa, education represents the only way out of a life of entrenched poverty. IkamvaYouth is much more than an education programme, as it plays a crucial role in promoting wellbeing into adulthood and importantly ensuring that our learners access a post school opportunity that puts them on the path to earning a dignified living.

The matric class of 2015 was IkamvaYouth’s largest ever, with over 240 Ikamvanites. These dedicated young men and women have overcome extraordinary adversity to reach and pass matric. From extreme poverty to gang violence, disintegrating families to drug and alcohol abuse, townships like Nyanga and Umlazi, the places the Ikamvanites call home, struggle with terrible social problems.

Despite those problems, the Ikamvanites of 2014 not only achieved an 82% matric pass rate, but 89% of all those who took their matric (whether they passed or failed) have already gone on to access the post-school opportunities to set them on the path to earning a dignified living.

Even more impressively 49% of the matriculants accessed either universities or colleges– proving that where you come from is no barrier to where you can get to in life. Ikamvanites are entering fields of study from chemical engineering to law, accounting to education, information technology to environmental management.

A further 11% accessed learnerships, 7% accessed employment, and 22% have returned to school to supplement or upgrade their matric marks. We will continue to work with those Ikamvanites who have not yet found a post-school opportunity, and help set them, too, on the path to a dignified living.

IkamvaYouth wishes to thank our committed donors for all the support they’ve given us - without you our work would not be possible.