Empowering Youth for better communities
Islamic Relief South Africa in partnership with Young Leaders Academy held the inception ceremony of the Incubator of Dreamers project at Durban Botanic Gardens Hall on 6 October 2022 within eThekwini Municipality. The ceremony commenced the project activities and gathered external and internal stakeholders to celebrate the conception of this project.
A generation of youth is contending with a wide range of challenges, which include unemployment, poverty, education, inequality, limited opportunities and lack of access to mentorship programmes. Based on the research by Statistics South Africa, youth constitutes 64% of the total population, with an estimated 42% being unemployed. Therefore, the approach to empowering our young generation requires different entities to leverage the economy by creating employment and investing in establishing small enterprises benefitting young people.
The project launch included the right holders of the project – the youth from different areas within the Municipality, representatives from different organizations such as African Child, Afrikology, Re-Start Durban, Innovate Durban, eThekwini Municipality, Southern Africa Dawah Network (SADN), Post Newspaper, Givers of Hope, Mayibuye Youth Organization, MA. Motala, Humanitarian Development Alliance SA (HUDA), World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). These stakeholders have played a role in ensuring the recruitment of participants for this project. They will also oversee the continuous nurturing of the relations throughout the project phases for a successful implementation.
The Incubator of Dreamers project will focus on empowering 100 underprivileged youth with different skills enabling them to develop, build and implement their social project or business ideas within their local communities based on the current needs within their environments. The project involves capacity building through different courses, providing participants with a solid foundation to develop their ideas. The Young Leaders Academy, the service provider, will facilitate training and mentorship for participants throughout the project phases, which will enhance the participant’s abilities ensuring that they become independent and confident within their field of expertise. The project activities are planned for 18 months and include various activities, events, and training courses to educate, inform and empower young people, males and females.
The intended outcome of the project aims at improving the skills of young people in addressing the socioeconomic challenges within their relevant communities. This will have a positive contribution to socioeconomic stability, sustainable development and economic growth in their respective communities. The project will inform, educate and empower participants to access quality education and increase integration into job markets.
The Incubator of Dreamers project aims to empower our youth by building relevant, sustainable and effective environments for educating and empowering. We will collaborate with young people and involve them in vital aspects focused on building better, more resilient communities. Our purpose is to create future leaders, ambassadors of change and beacons of hope through this initiative.
We pray that the intentions behind this initiative come to fruition and serve as a model to empower, educate and inform our younger generations to be self-sufficient and sustainable and be ambassadors of change within their respective communities.