Siyazana Youth Development Fund (SYDF) was established in 2017 after its founder and board members met with various adolescents living in abject poverty and whose lives were directly negatively influenced by gangsterism and drugs in Gugulethu, Cape Town.

We found that the lack of employment, skills development, poor or no Early Childhood Development (ECD) interventions, and widespread gender or sexual based violence played an intrinsic role in the cycle of impoverishment in these young lives, in fact most of them did not have a Grade 12 qualification and had been severely negatively impacted in the areas of personal and social development.

What we do:

SYDF promotes a holistic approach in combating these challenges and understand that a single-handed approach does not work in the context of South Africa (an example of this is that children cannot learn without food). Our programs focus on the following areas:

• Improving the conditions of Early Childhood Development Facilities in our communities
• Offering skills development training to what is classed as “un-employable” youth
• Focusing on education around Sexual and Gender based violence
• Humanitarian Support to ensure the success of projects

In less than four years we have built partnerships with other organisations such as Hands of Honour (who build our ECD Kits), Mfesane, Boland Chess, Hyde Road Primary and the Genesis Project to name a few. We have also expanded our projects to Pniel, Hangklip and Grabouw, providing training to those affected by cognitive development issues and then equipping them with the required skills to become employed.

Through our projects we have ensured that in addition to training and bursaries, we have provided sustainable employment and fitted out various Early Childhood Development Centres which means our activities have a dual impact.

• An example of this is our woodwork collaboration with Hands of Honour, who trains reformed gangsters to build Early Childhood Development kits. Siyazana in turn purchases these kits and donates them to needy ECD centres. This aids them with the development of the cognitive skills of the children in their care, enabling their school readiness.

• Caregivers of marginalised adolescent children are often themselves marginalised and disempowered, nor in a financial position to send the youth to skills training centres. Added to this challenge, community-based Adolescent Centres focusing on health and lifestyle skills are often difficult to access or non-existent. We understand that youth unemployment is at its highest rate ever and the socio-economic effects linked to this have severe and detrimental effects. We believe that by creating an opportunity to train and supply work to the most vulnerable, is our responsibility and with your help we can change the cycle of poverty.

Adapting to challenges posed by COVID-19

Siyazana Youth Development Fund has channeled all its reserves to help with the basic needs of those in the communities in which we work.

The fund has, like many other organisations with the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic, had to change its focus as the adverse results of this pandemic hit South Africa.  We started using our minimal reserves to introduce feeding schemes at the ECD centres that we partner with. The need quickly expanded, and we soon found ourselves supplying over 800,000 hot meals during the first year of lockdown.

We also focus heavily on personal protective equipment with specific attention to quality re-usable masks for children and adolescents. We have distributed over 25,500 masks to date, but this does not come anywhere close to combating the shortage and our limited finances implies that we can only distribute a limited amount per week with most children only receiving one mask.

We are currently supporting 14 community kitchens with much needed food supplies and produce over 10,000 nutritional meals per week. This is done with the support of various community projects and kitchens.

Any donation is welcome to assist us in our activities, and we are able to issue a Section 18A certificate for your donation.

Our bank details are as follows:

Bank                                      : Standard Bank

Account name                   : Siyazana YDF

Branch Code                      : 051 001

Account Number:            :310 816 289

We thank you for your consideration and invite you to visit one of our current projects. Please contact us if you’d like any further information on our organisation and our activities.