With unemployment remaining one of the key factors hampering economic growth in the country, efforts to reverse this development need to be celebrated.

With unemployment remaining one of the key factors hampering economic growth in the country, efforts to reverse this development need to be celebrated.

The City of Joburg, in partnership with the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce (JCCI), ORT South Africa and MaAfrika Tikkun, recently launched a pilot of the Job Pathways programme geared to helping unemployed youths gain workplace experience.

This project, a City of Joburg initiative, is particularly interesting in the light of that 47 percent of unemployed in Johannesburg alone have never worked before.

The danger of this is that people fall into the negative mindset of hopelessness, making it impossible for them to motivate and pick themselves up to look for work. It is no wonder that most resort to crime.

Through the Job Pathways programme youths are taken through an intensive sixmonths training programme, three months of which involve practical and theoretical training on industry and sector specific skills and the remainder they undergo on the job training.

Vodacom, MTN, Bidvest, Assign and Drake and Saulle, among others, have come on board as partners who will provide on-the-job training for these youths. Should they prove to be a success they could eventually be considered for full-time employment.

Marc Lubner,CEO: MaAfrika Tikkun