Six years of empowering youth
WOODMEAD – The Youth Citizens Action Programme (YCAP) celebrated six years of creating change agents, those who encourage pupils to make positive changes to their communities, by announcing a long-anticipated collaboration.
The celebration, held on 19 March, was opened with a video depicting the growth of the programme – from a series of youth dialogues held at NPO Afrika Tikkun, to a widespread programme that officially empowers youth throughout the country.
YCAP aims to gain perspective by allowing Grade 7 and Grade 10 pupils to identify and create projects that address academic, economic, environmental and social issues.
“A definite highlight this year has been the number of past participants, and even members of the public, who want to volunteer their time as part of our YCAP support team. They have said they have seen that through YCAP, they could achieve significant things when they put their minds to it,” said Amanda Blankfield-Koseff, founder and CEO of the Empowervate Trust, the NPO which powers YCAP.
The guest speaker of the event was founder of Black Like Me hair products, Herman Mashaba, who encouraged all guests to no longer focus on race.
The South African entrepreneur explained that racial dividers in the country have been hindering economic growth and the healing of the people. Although the showcase event took place in Durban, the birthday event was also the platform used to celebrate the winning teams from each of the nine provinces that had created successful action projects in their schools.
The winners were chosen from more than 3 600 pupils in over 360 schools from all over the country.
Blankfield-Koseff concluded that YCAP had already changed thousands of lives.
“We look forward to expanding the programme.”
