Youth Capital

Youth Capital Youth Capital advocates for evidence-based and youth-centered solutions to youth unemployment

Soweto, this one's for you.A free screening of The Value We Don't Count, our documentary about young people doing the wo...
06/10/2026

Soweto, this one's for you.

A free screening of The Value We Don't Count, our documentary about young people doing the work their communities need, and what happens when that work is finally paid for and valued.

Watch it with us. Stay for the conversation. Leave part of a movement.

Friday 9 October
12:00 to 2:30 PM
Phakamani Young Minds Academy, Soweto
Free entry. Seats are limited.

Grab your seat: https://bit.ly/theworkwedontcount_sm

In partnership with Phakamani Young Minds Academy.

02/10/2026

On the 21st of October, the Minister of Finance walks into Parliament with a document that could decide whether a young person you know has a work opportunity next year.

It's called the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, or the mini budget. February was the plan. October is the check-in. Did government collect the revenue it projected? Did the economy perform as expected? Did departments spend what they were allocated? And what does government plan to do next, with what money?

It does three things. It updates the economic picture. It adjusts allocations, moving, rolling over or removing money. And it signals where spending is headed through the MTEF, the three-year rolling plan.

That last part is where it gets tricky. A programme can look funded this year and be sitting at almost nothing in year three. Nobody notices, because nobody reads that far. That is exactly what happened to public employment programmes.

So we're watching the outer years, not just this one, and we're asking how protected that money is. That's what ring-fenced means: when circumstances change, that budget shouldn't quietly be reallocated to newer priorities.

Here's the part most people don't know. Once the mini budget is tabled, Parliament scrutinises it. Committees are set up, the public makes submissions, hearings take place. You don't need to be an economist to take part.

We've sat in those rooms. We've presented in those rooms. You can be in them too. We'll walk this journey with you and tell you exactly how.

Budgets are not just numbers. They are political and moral documents with real-life consequences.

👉 Sign the petition: bit.ly/peps4youthfb

Re squeeze'eng in. ✊🏾

29/09/2026

Every time we post about this petition, the same three questions come up. So we answered them properly.

What am I signing? A demand that government properly funds public employment programmes. A million opportunities every year, multi-year and ring-fenced. Multi-year so the programme doesn't die after 12 months. Ring-fenced so the money can't disappear halfway through the year.

Does it actually work? Over a million placements through the schools programme alone since 2020. More than nine in ten teachers said it made their work possible. Through the Social Employment Fund, young people are doing work their communities were going without. The evidence is not the problem. It was cut because it was easy to cut.

Does a petition change anything? On its own, no. Attached to a submission going to the parliamentary committee that decides what happens to this money, with a pile of names behind it, yes.

The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement is tabled on 21 October. Sign before then.

👉 bit.ly/peps4youthfb

Re squeeze'eng in. ✊🏾

From Cape Town to Kimberley to Limpopo.The Value We Don't Count has now screened in three provinces, and the conversatio...
25/09/2026

From Cape Town to Kimberley to Limpopo.

The Value We Don't Count has now screened in three provinces, and the conversations after each screening were honest: public employment programmes are imperfect. Short contracts. Questions about what happens when a young person comes in one year and is out the next. Whether the stipend and the skills go far enough.

But every room was clear about the way forward: grow these programmes, and fix what is broken. Cutting the funding, or cutting them at the knees, takes the country backwards. The public good is real. Young people supporting classrooms, keeping community services running, holding up the arts we cannot do without, earning an income and finding a way into the economy.

The question is bigger than any one programme. What does it take to reach a future where unemployment is less of a crisis? Where we can all contribute to a better South Africa and sustain a livelihood while doing it?

Protecting and growing public employment is part of that answer. Add your name: a ring-fenced, multi-year budget, and at least one million opportunities a year for young people. It takes under a minute.

Sign the petition: https://bit.ly/peps4youthfb

24/09/2026

One in every two young people in this country cannot find work.

South Africa already has something that works. Public employment programmes pay young people a stipend to do real work in places that are short-staffed. Schools, clinics, early learning centres, community organisations. More than a million placements through the school programme alone since 2020, and more than nine in ten teachers said it made their work possible.

Then it got cut.

We're asking for ring-fenced, multi-year funding for at least a million opportunities every year. Ring-fenced so the money can't be moved mid-year. Multi-year so a young person and their community can actually plan around it.

The Medium Term Budget Policy Statement is tabled on 21 October. Sign before then.

👉 bit.ly/peps4youthfb

It's today. Come watch The Value We Don't Count with us this afternoon.Our new documentary sits with young people doing ...
23/09/2026

It's today. Come watch The Value We Don't Count with us this afternoon.

Our new documentary sits with young people doing the work their communities need most, and with the teachers, communities and programme implementers alongside them. It asks what happens when that work is properly valued and paid.

Watch the film, then stay for the conversation on what public employment makes possible.

Today, Wednesday 23 September
4:00 to 6:00 PM
Bertha House, 67 Main Rd, Mowbray, Cape Town
Free entry.

RSVP: https://bit.ly/thevaluewedontcount_screening

Across South Africa, young people are already doing the work their communities need most: supporting classrooms, running...
18/09/2026

Across South Africa, young people are already doing the work their communities need most: supporting classrooms, running community programmes, keeping vital services going. Proper public investment turns that work into real livelihoods, real skills, and real change.

The Value We Don't Count is a new Youth Capital documentary about what public employment makes possible when young people are trusted to meet community needs, and what we all lose when these programmes are the first to be cut.

Come watch the film, hear the thinking behind it, and join a conversation about what proper public investment in young people could unlock. This is about solutions that already work, and how we protect and grow them.

Wednesday, 23 September
4:00 to 6:00 PM
Bertha House, 67 Main Rd, Mowbray, Cape Town
All welcome. RSVP to save your seat.

RSVP: https://bit.ly/thevaluewedontcount_screening

16/09/2026

📍 Meet Tumi, our Community Facilitator in Gauteng 💛

Gauteng may be South Africa's smallest province, but the work happening here is anything but small. From townships and informal economies to creative spaces and youth-led initiatives ⚡ young people are organising and finding new ways to respond to the challenges around them.

🗣️ Tumi's role is to create the spaces where that happens: where young people come together, share their lived experiences, question the systems that affect them and turn those conversations into collective action.

Our Community Facilitators are based in all nine provinces 🇿🇦, hosting meet-ups in their own communities and carrying what they hear into the rooms where decisions get made.

Youth unemployment is structural. It will take organised young people, close to the ground, to shift it ✊🏾

New on the blog 📌R50 return by taxi to reach the nearest Youth Centre, and that's if the taxi comes. Little to no networ...
14/09/2026

New on the blog 📌

R50 return by taxi to reach the nearest Youth Centre, and that's if the taxi comes. Little to no network at home. A learnership advertised in Polokwane might as well be in a different country.

We tell young people to apply online. Without signal, without data, without a page that loads, that instruction goes nowhere.

Kgabo Legodi, our Community Facilitator in Limpopo, writes about what looking for work actually costs in Ga-Mokgokong and Moletjie, and why opportunities stay in town instead of reaching the young people who are ready for them.

3-minute read: https://bit.ly/kgabo_blog

We pulled up to the policy table. 🪑On 27 August we co-convened the South African Social and Solidarity Economy Policy Sy...
09/09/2026

We pulled up to the policy table. 🪑

On 27 August we co-convened the South African Social and Solidarity Economy Policy Symposium with Catalyst Now South Africa, at Holiday Inn Sunnyside Park in Parktown. The theme: Building South Africa's Social and Solidarity Economy Ecosystem, From Fragmentation to System Transformation.

At the heart of the day was the Ecosystem Co-Design Workshop. Participants worked across four thematic groups: Policy and Enabling Environment, Inclusive Markets, Knowledge and Innovation, and Local and Community Ecosystems. Each group identified the emerging issues, mapped who is already doing the work, and agreed on one collective priority for the next 6 to 12 months.

The room brought together social innovators and entrepreneurs, government, the private sector, civil society, philanthropy, development finance agencies, organised labour and global institutions, in person and online. Deputy Minister Steve Letsike of the Department in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities opened the day. Minister of Small Business Development Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams joined virtually. The Director-General of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition also spoke.

Then the room agreed on something else. The voices that were not there still need to be heard. There is now a survey open to everyone working in this sector, and it helps identify who should sit as a sector representative on the National Multistakeholder Task Team.

If you do this work, this is how you get in. Submissions close 18 September 2026.⏳

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/A3mGFmRtrf

Convened with Catalyst Now, Africa Forward, the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy, the African Union, the Department of Employment and Labour, and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

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