After a few years working as a professional, Andile Mlozana felt that he wanted to give back to his community. His only challenge was how. This is when a friend introduced him to the foundation, and now he is a mentor for learners at Bainsvlei Combined School.
Youth Managers Foundation (YMF) is a youth development organisation duly registered as non profit company, focusing on the following key pillars: leadership, career guidance and mentorship. It was founded in 2008 by the executive chairperson, Mabutho Mthembu, and a group of other professionals. “We look at how we can give back to the community; through mentoring the schools, by exposing them to different careers and by unleashing their leadership potential,” he says.
YMF focuses on three aspects. Firstly, leadership development, which seeks to develop young change-driven leaders from high school level who undertake a responsibility of addressing social ills threatening to cripple their schools and personal lives.
Secondly, career guidance, where they assist young people with effective career guidance support and mentorship to help shape their career decisions and further assist with applications at higher learning institutions.
And lastly, mentorship, which focuses on developing skills, values and qualities which YMF believes are critical in unleashing the potential of young people, including servant leadership, self-confidence, self-belief and self-esteem.
Although the foundation is more established in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal, Mlozana says they are working towards making it bigger in the Free State. He says that anybody that has wedged a career path for themselves can be a part of YMF. “We are trying to find as many role models for the learners as possible. We concentrate on young professionals, but we are also open to business people and people from different career streams.”
There are two ways one can be a part of YMF, either as a professional or as a mentor. “If you are a mentor, you are basically allocated a school that you partner with. You try to engage them and guide learners through some of the projects that we embark on.”
The other option is through being a professional, which means you are then part of the YMF professionals’ database. “We have quarterly seminars with the learners, where we come together and discuss topics such as leadership, strategising, career guidance and all of those things. In those quarterly seminars we normally invite a few of our professionals that are part of our database to come and engage with the learners, just spend the day with them and to help guide them when we do identify some challenges.”
People are welcom to email: [email protected] and contact any of the professionals involved in YMF.
YMF in Bloemfontein will be hosting a career day on 20 May 2017, at Dr Blok High School, starting at 08:00. Mlozana says they have invited a few professionals from their database, but anyone who is interested is still welcome to join.
“We have invited as many professionals as possible. Everybody is invited, whether you are a business person, a businessman or a professional. The idea behind this initiative is to expose the learners to as many careers as possible.” – Seithati Semenokane
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YMF helps professionals give back
Youth Managers Foundation mentor and attorney by profession, Andile Mlozana, was looking for a way to give back to the community, when he was introduced to the foundation.
