Young people making change for orphans and vulnerable children

Empowervate is proud to be associated as an implemention partner of the Youth Citizens Action Programme (Y-CAP) for the third consecutive year at the Mae Jemison Science Reading Room in Mamelodi.

The programme is run at one of the U.S. Embassy’s American Spaces – The Mae Jemison Science Reading Room at the University of Pretoria: Mamelodi campus. CAF SA is the entity that manages the relationship between service providers and the centre. 

This year’s showcase event is not a competition, but it recognizes the achievements of a group of Mamelodi students for conceptualizing, organizing and implementing civic projects that sought to create solutions to problems within their schools and communities.

The students chose to focus on children’s homes as they saw the dire need and felt they would like to assist in bringing hope and resources into these homes for orphans and vulnerable children. The teams presented their projects and had a key note address from Johannesburg Child Welfare so they can expand their projects in the future and they received certificates during a ceremony on Thursday, 10 October 2019 at the University of Pretoria Mamelodi campus.

The Y-CAP prpgramme helped these learners to develop leadership and project management skills. Over the past five months, students have partaken in training workshops and developed projects of interest to them and their communities.  

Another highlight is that 5 of the previous participants are now mentors to the new teams.

We look forward to how the skills these youth have learned will empower them to be change agents well into the future.