Shelton Chadya – 5 Distinctions

Shelton first joined IkamvaYouth during 2010’s protracted Public Servants strike as he sought out a place to continue studying while his teachers weren’t teaching. His determination and commitment to his school work has paid off handsomely in that he has jumped more than two symbols in 3 of the subjects he ultimately received distinctions for. Earlier this year Shelton also won his region’s Accounting Olympiad and with these skills he intends to study a BCOM at either WITS or UJ this year. Shelton has already been working with younger learners helping them improve their understanding of their school subjects and he is now looking forward to officially joining the IkamvaYouth volunteer team this year to help others follow in his footsteps.

Nombuso Ndala – 4 Distinctions

Nombuso has been part of the furniture at IkamvaYouth this year as she has used every opportunity to work on improving her understanding of her school subjects. Often Nombuso (sometimes with fellow Ikamvanites) could be found working in the matric room trying to solve difficult problems. Nombuso has made ample use of the tutoring sessions, the learning channel and the Answers Series booklets. On discovering how she had fared on the matric exams she had this to say, “I was so over the moon to receive my results and so happy. I immediately told my mom and she started crying. I worked so hard and practiced and practiced and practiced to get these results. I am so happy.” During her time with IkamvaYouth, in addition to her 4 distinctions, Nombuso also lifted her maths mark from 32% to 62% and intends to study a BCOM at Wits this year, her mother is unemployed.

Tshepo Lesejane – 1 Distinction

When Tshepo first joined IkamvaYouth he had 39% for Maths Literacy but after two years of intensive hard work and tutoring he managed to score a distinction (over 80%) in his matric exam. This means that Tshepo has more than doubled his Maths Literacy result in the two years that he has been with IkamvaYouth -  a notable achievement indeed. Tshepo hopes to work in the media industry and to study media and journalism in 2012.

There are also further notable achievements from the individual results we have collected so far:

Masabatha Rambuwani scored a distinction in Life Orientation, 73% for English (second language) and went from 30% in Accounting to 72%. Thabang Simelane also scored a distinction in Life Orientation and went from 31% in Accounting to 56%. He also went from 14% in Pure Maths to 49% (which will be submitted for a remark in search of that elusive 1%).

IkamvaYouth Gauteng learners celebrate with Joe and Zamo on receiving their results.

Among the many happy success stories, two stand out so far: Shelton Chadya achieved a monumental 5 distinctions (his 3rd highest mark was 64% when he joined IkamvaYouth). Tshepo Lesejane also scored a distinction in maths literacy which is particularly impressive in that his maths literacy mark when he joined IkamvaYouth was only 39%. Tshepo has effectively more than doubled his results in 2 years with IkamvaYouth.

Shelton Chadya who scored 5 distinctions in his matric exams.

True credit for these results must go to our awesome learners, volunteers and donors and the branch team for pulling this all together. The learners have put in countless hours of hard work and study, the volunteers have continuously poured their hearts and souls into assisting our learners and the donors have provided the means for this to take place. In particular we are especially grateful to ABI, Hatch andAfrican Bank for their contributions to the programme this past year.

All that is left is for us to toast the success of the IkamvaYouth Gauteng matrics and to celebrate these achievements in the days ahead. The next task is to ensure all of these learners get access to quality post-school opportunities in the next few months while we also officially open our new Gauteng branch to assist more learners.

Busy but exciting days in store.

We’ll start again then with two predictions for the 2011 matric results:

1. The first prediction (and one we make with a reasonable degree of confidence based on 5 years of consistently good results) is that Ikamvanites will once again excel despite the incredible obstacles they encounter in their schooling careers. The IkamvaYouth Matric group will once again be an inspiring example of a group of township-based individuals taking their futures into their hands though hard work, collaboration, dedication and commitment. As a result, many more township school learners will access quality post-school opportunities and many more will return to IkamvaYouth as volunteers to help others do the same.
2. The second prediction (and this is once again mostly a hunch) is that, at worst, the overall matric pass-rate will stay roughly the same but is likely to improve by a percentage point or two or more. There are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is that the department is getting better at teaching matriculants to write exams (the merits of which is highly debatable) but perhaps most significantly there are very  nearly 50 000 fewer fulltime learners writing matric this year than last year. Yes, thats right, FIFTY THOUSAND!!! The mind boggles and it seems the best answer to the question of where these learners have disappeared to is, “Goodness knows”. Straight into thin air it would appear.

There is, however, one possible answer (albeit somewhat cynical) in that this is really a bit of a pattern. There is more than enough evidence in the township schools that IkamvaYouth works with to suggest that these schools routinely inflate their matric results by excluding learners from matric if it appears they are unlikely to pass their final exams. As a case in point: at School A, nearby our Gauteng IkamvaYouth branch, 400 learners are accepted into Grade 8 to begin their high school careers but only 134 learners make it to write their matric exams (and of these just over 50% pass each year). Or, worse, at School B, also very near our Gauteng branch, 350 learners start Grade 8 but only 90 learners make it to matric and of these only 62% pass each year.

Nationally, the situation is even worse. Approximately 1 million learners start Grade 1 around the country each year but only 512 000 full-time learners registered to write matric in 2011. So, even though the class of 2011 is likely to achieve close to a 70% matric pass rate, the real matric pass-rate is actually 38%. Now if that doesn’t spoil your holiday mood then nothing will. Or wait, we could also go further to consider the stupendous tertiary level drop-out rate (roughly 2 out of every 3 students fail to complete their degree) or the FET pass rate (between 10-12%) but the true magnitude of this would probably cause our brains to melt or explode. All of which is fuel for Jay Naidoo’s prediction of an SA “Egyptian moment“.

The bottom line is that in 2011 we have continued to shuffle deck-chairs while the titanic is sinking – no wait, SUNK – the SA schooling titanic has never ever actually been sea worthy and we’re doing ourselves a massive disservice to assume that it has (outside of former model-C or private schools of course). We really have to stop asking the salvage question that goes, “How do we fix education in South Africa?” and instead take a step further backwards and ask the desperately more urgent question ”How do we make it fixable?” because right now it isn’t fixable and it isn’t working for 73% of South Africa’s youth.

Want to make a difference or help us expand? Then sponsor a learner or IkamvaYouth branch today? OrVolunteer.

We can safely assume that this scene was repeated throughout township and rural communities across the country and perhaps Steven Friedman has identified one of the key reasons here. Unfortunately, this lack of interest does not mean there will be no serious repercussions for township and rural communities and therefore Ikamvanites (as Friedman points out). There are also major areas of concern in Pierre De Vos’s account of the technical aspects of the Bill and the powers it gives to government to guard and classify information. Given too that Desmond Tutu refers to the Bill as an “insult to all South Africans” and Jay Naidoo issues warnings against “a dangerous and paranoid direction for our country” it is only wise to reflect on the issues ourselves and how they relate to our own positions.

We’ve said it often that IkamvaYouth strives not only to achieve great impact in what we do, but also strives to be very deliberate in the way we do it. As you know, IkamvaYouth operates as a grassroots organisational democracy underpinned by a set of core IkamvaYouth values that seek inclusive decision-making, collective ownership and consensus wherever possible. IkamvaYouth flips the traditional hierarchical top-down approach on its head with branch representatives (including beneficiaries) hiring/firing branch coordinators and branch coordinators hiring/firing regional coordinators (effectively their bosses in both instances). The IkamvaYouth board, in addition to its legal and fiduciary duties, acts primarily as custodian of the IkamvaYouth values (much like a constitutional court) and at all levels, stakeholders are invited to offer input to meetings when decisions will impact directly on their circumstances.

The upshot of working in this way means that a branch of IkamvaYouth does not just work within a particular community but, more accurately, the branch ends up creating a community and it’s a community anchored in and centred around IkamvaYouth’s organisational values. For this to work though, and for any democratic community to work, we have to have access to as much information as possible or we will make poor decisions and/or disengage from the process. What’s more, as Parker Palmer helpfully points out, democracy is fundamentally a matter of the human heart and the great democratic journey is a continual alignment and re-alignment of our individual and collective hearts with the core democratic values. This is the only way we’re able to find the “courage to create a politics worthy of the human spirit”.

In the IkamvaYouth context, ready access to relevant information for informed and engaged decision-making means a transparency on budgetary issues and sensitive topics like salaries. Everyone at IkamvaYouth knows what everyone else is earning and conflicts are discussed openly and honestly trusting the process that collective wisdom guided by the IkamvaYouth values will continue to move us in the direction we wish to go. Like any good democracy, IkamvaYouth is invariably a little messy on occasion and sometimes meetings can be tense. We are also often less efficient than the authoritarian alternative (except with regards to social impact) but the upside in terms of collective buy-in, pride and ownership is significant and the gains are immeasurable in helping to create community.

The problem with the Information Bill (or at least one of the problems) is that it introduces a new barrier to creating the kind of community we long for in South Africa (and we’ve got more than enough barriers already). It makes it harder for us to be engaged active citizens even assuming that there may be some highly-specific pieces of information justifiably held by the state. The members of parliament who voted for the Bill showed little sign that they held every aspect of the Bill up against the light of the values enshrined in the constitution or gave serious thought to the constitutional principal of transparent governance. They also showed little appreciation of the life-lesson that we can’t be in real community when we keep too many secrets regardless of how honourable our intentions at the outset. In short, it feels like our democratic hearts are unaligned and it is instructive that both Pierre De Vos and Jay Naidoo (above) invoke the issue of “trust” as core to what’s at stake.

Experience has taught us that a necessary condition for each of us to remain active, responsible, democratic IkamvaYouth Citizens is for us to have access to as much information as possible in making properly informed and constructive decisions. It is a vital component of our desire to remain rooted in our values and in authentic community with each other. Similarly then, for us to be active, responsible, democratic citizens sharing our lives together in this country the same must surely apply. We need access to as much information as possible to remain an engaged citizenry and to check how the country’s democratic heart aligns with our treasured democratic values. Democracy is not a passive past-time and we’re going to have to work continuously and exceptionally hard to keep it but since it’s a matter of the heart it will bring us great meaning, sometimes pain and often life.

As Ikamvanites, we have an opportunity to be an example to the rest of the country of a functioning democratic grassroots community in our own small way. We can’t work on healing our hearts and aligning our values without also working on healing the social and economic injustices of the past which is why the ‘what’ we do and social impact remains so important but it is ultimately also the ‘way’ that we do things that will determine whether we remain active and engaged and in authentic community with each other and our country.

Highly Recommended Reading: Healing the Heart of Democracy: Creating a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit by Parker Palmer. Good democratic soul-food.

In particular, recognition was made of the sustainable social impact the Siyakhula Computer Schools are making in their township communities and for their potential for growth and replication. With Ebony Park Computer School expected to train in excess of 600 students this year and the brand-new Diepsloot Computer School expected to train in excess of 120 students – everything points towards the model as effective, sustainable and highly replicable.

Huge credit for this achievement must go to the amazing team of Trainers and Administrators at the schools who have such a big heart for their communities and so selflessly serve their students in the name of educational advancement. The great hope now is that recognition of this kind from Microsoft will help the computer school to scale and to share experiences with like-minded organisations. Far too many computer training projects are either unsustainable or offer a below-standard training experience and it is Siyakhula’s absolute resolve and commitment to ensure that much-needed computer literacy training for individuals from impoverished communities is sustainable while remaining Affordable, Accessible and Top-Quality.

Finally, a big vote of thanks for LGIT Smart Solutions for their commitment and input into the growth of the computer schools. LGIT ensure the standard of Siyakhula’s training is always of a corporate-quality equivalent and each graduation they take the top performing graduates on more advanced IT training.

Hatch has been a long-time supporter of the Siyakhula Education Foundation (SEF) and of the Computer School in Ebony Park as well as a key sponsor of the Ivory Park IkamvaYouth programme. Hatch is now also helping SEF grow the social impact of the computer school through enterprise development support that meets both a  social need for affordable and accessible computer literacy training and creates sustainable employment in the process. The key objective of the Siyakhula Computer School is to provide low-cost, high-quality end-user computer literacy training to South Africa’s township communities as a stepping stone towards further study, employment and/or learnership opportunities.

Mandla Sithole (pictured in the striped shirt above) is a local resident of Diepsloot and the project manager and trainer at the new computer school. He is looking forward to helping scale the computer school model and improve the levels of computer literacy in his own community. Mandla says, “I feel great about this computer school because this is something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always invested myself in my community and to now be involved in training others to help them improve their circumstances is a dream come true. I am not doing this for the money but for the community – for the love of my community.”

Mandla Sithole (left) and Ephraim Sehlabo (right).

Working alongside Mandla is Ephraim Sehlabo, also a resident of Diepsloot, who is as excited about the future prospects of the school, “These days it is so important to know how to use a computer because in order to live you need to work somewhere, and in order to work somewhere you need computer skills so it’s really not optional, its critically important.” Mandla agrees with Ephraim and often tells his students, “We need to unlock the door to better future prospects and employment through computer skills and improving our education. There is no shortcut and it is the only sustainable route if we want to develop ourselves and our communities.”

.

The Diepsloot Computer Centre is situated in the Zikhuliseni Complex within the impressive Bophelong Place of Life Centre. Zikhuliseni is a joint-skills development initiative between Bryanston Methodist Church and Growthpoint Properties. The computer school currently boasts 16 state of the art computers which many of the Diepsloot students will be using as their first excursions into the world of information technology.

Charmaine Kombora, one of the first students to enroll at the Diepsloot branch, says that she came to the centre because it is affordable and easy to get to. She has been waiting to learn to use a computer for a long time now and is thrilled to discover that it is now affordable and accessible to her. For Charmaine, “Computers are everywhere and we have to become computer literate to progress which is why I am so excited about improving my education at Siyakhula.”

A fellow student, Lebo Molekoathing is also impressed by the affordability and quality of the training. As a community worker himself he holds leadership positions with the local Young Communist League and as a qualified Karate Sensai. Lebo wants to be an example to people from his community and hopes that others will follow his lead and enroll to learn computer skills too. He says, “Technology is just so pervasive that learning the computer should be our number one priority and when I discovered Siyakhula Computer School was here in Diepsloot I knew I had to be first in line to register. As a community and as South Africans, we need to learn and we need to learn fast if we are to make the most of technology to help solve the problems we face today.”

.

The computer school in Diepsloot will provide much-needed affordable and accessible end-user computer training to the Diepsloot community and ensure that it is sustainable in the process. By the end of 2011, the school expects to have run training for at least 80 students and (assuming it replicates the success of the Ebony Park branch) is expected to be fully self-sustaining and training in excess of 500 students annually by 2014.

.

For more details about the course content or to enrol, contact Ephraim or Mandla on 011 042 9898 or 084 944 4799.

For details about the Siyakhula Computer School sustainability model contact Andrew on 082 903 5979.

On Saturday 25 June, IkamvaYouth Ivory Park hosted its inaugural Careers Indaba at the IkamvaYouth Centre in Ivory Park, near Midrand. Despite icy conditions, the event saw approximately 300 learners and members of the community attend the free event that was hosted by Ikamva Youth together with participants of the 2011 Nexus Programme at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS).

For photos from the IkamvaYouth Careers Indaba in Ivory Park, click here.

The Careers Indaba comprised of a number of major exhibiting corporates including Deloitte, ABI Beverages, KPMG and Accenture as well as representatives from the CSIR, a collection of tertiary and NGO organisations and over 40 volunteers. Tertiary institutions like WITS, Midrand Graduate Institute, Ekhuruleni West College and St Augustine College advised interested learners on courses and qualifications required for future study opportunities.

Halfway through the well-attended event, the surprise arrival of Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, caused much excitement amongst learners and exhibitors alike.  Despite only staying for 10 minutes, Motshekga visited all stands personally and gave an impromptu speech to the appreciative audience. Speaking predominantly in Xhosa, she urged learners to stay in school and work hard, saying education was the single most important investment you can have in yourself. She said, “We are grateful for IkamvaYouth and for all the work they do with young people in education and we are especially thrilled to see so many supporters, companies, organisations and volunteers getting involved alongside IkamvaYouth to help build a better nation”.

Andrew Barrett, coordinator of IkamvaYouth Gauteng and a member of this year’s Nexus intake at GIBS, was overwhelmed by the attendance of the event, saying, “The lack of knowledge about potential career opportunities is a major obstacle for township school learners and so this sort of day is invaluable for so many of them. The vision of the Careers Indaba was to increase awareness and access to opportunities for individuals from impoverished communities to improve their circumstances and better plan for their futures. Based on the success of this year’s experience, we hope to make it an annual event.”

Aimed at Grade 10-12 learners but open to all interested members of the community, individual volunteers were encouraged to dialogue with attendees on a one-to-one basis sharing their own workplace and education experiences.

Dylan Kerr Balkind, a volunteer in his own capacity, shared his experience as a copywriter in advertising and was inspired by the new generation of learners who he communicated with. He said, “I feel like I got more out of today than most of the learners.  It was wonderful to share our stories and as a whole, I found them motivated, ambitious and determined to make a success of their careers. I am looking forward to working with many of these bright young stars in the future.”

Tea and coffee kept the exhibitors warm while food sponsored by Pick n Pay and beverages sponsored by ABI Beverages kept the attendees refreshed and in high spirits. The event also hosted a series of motivational workshops for the learners and finished off with a raffle draw, with gifts and prizes being donated to the excited crowd by Deloitte, Pick n Pay and WITS.

IkamvaYouth is a South African not-for-profit organization focused on the empowerment of youth through education, e-literacy and career guidance.  Established in 2003, the organisation currently operates in three provinces nationally, in Khaelitsha, Nyanga and Masiphmelele in the Western Cape, Ivory Park in Gauteng and Cato Crest in KwaZulu-Natal respectively. The Ikamva Youth model is an innovative, township-based, volunteer-driven project achieving remarkable results through offering attendees supplementary tutoring, mentoring, career guidance, HIV education, life skills development and e-training. Their success rate is astonishing, with the Western Cape Ikamva Youth matriculate pass rate at between 90 and 100 percent each year. An advocate of Ikamva Youth, Motshekga has previously been quoted as saying, “The NGO sector has continued to play a very important role in education. We were fascinated by initiatives of young people supporting other young people, like IkamvaYouth.

For more photos from the IkamvaYouth Careers Indaba in Ivory Park, click here.

Written by Jane Lewis – GIBS Nexus 2011 delegate

At the beginning of every year, 1.3 million children begin school in Grade 1 but only 550 000 write Matric. Of these, only 68% will pass. And of these, 25% scrape through with 30s and 40s.

The effective Matric pass-rate in South Africa every year is thus actually closer to 29%.

And this is before we even begin to look at university retention rates and the spine-chilling FET college pass rates. I often say to people that as bad as you think the education landscape in South Africa is, it’s actually worse.

Which brings me to the conclusion that if this is not a YOUTH ISSUE then I don’t know what is.

There is surely no more pressing concern for young people across this country than the dismal state of education that every year systematically robs them of their futures.

How is it then that education will barely feature at this weekend’s ANC Youth League elective conference as representatives of the most influential youth movement in the country meet to discuss their plans for the next four years? Can we not see that the chains of poverty are firmly entrenched in the dysfunctionality of our schools? Do we not realise that the failure of our education system is causing as much damage as the race-based policies of old? Are we so blinded by our personal agendas so as to be unable to distinguish between what will alleviate poverty and what will entrench it?

The ANCYL is absolutely correct and justifed to point out that we need more equitable and more workable solutions to the massive problems of land reform, to righting past injustices and to creating broad-based economic inclusion in this country (you would have a hard time arguing against this) but without the provision of quality education any/every solution will be temporary at best and exascerbating at worst. We simply cannot end poverty without the access to quality opportunities that decent education provides. This is the bottom line and it is a mantra we should repeat over and over again until we are blue in the face – we should NEVER grow tired of saying this.

I guess what is especially puzzling is the assertion that nationalisation and wholesale land redistribution on its own is a solution to poverty. Any potential solution that is not also forward-looking and does not include improving education is tenuous at best. The hard truth is that there are not too many examples around the world, if any, where nationalisation has actually lessened the suffering of ordinary people. At best, the status quo remains the same and all that changes are the ‘elite’ at the trough. But on the contrary, there are countless examples of quality education acting as a springboard towards a better future not only for individuals but for an entire country  - look no further than Singapore.

But we don’t even need to look that far, at IkamvaYouth we discovered that the average first pay-cheque of a learner who joins IkamvaYouth, who improves her school marks, who gets into university and who graduates after three years will be 5 times the collective income of her entire household when she first joined IkamvaYouth. It’s as simple as that. In 5 years the cycle of poverty in a family is broken and it’s broken on the back of decent education.

We really need more creative and imaginative thought from our leaders and especially from the ANCYL as the problem of dismal education is a YOUTH problem. The empty platitude that everyone is entitled to quality education is clearly not going to cut it. This really is thus nothing short of a desperate plea on behalf the voiceless hundreds of thousands of young people to make this the number 1 priority in all programmes post this year’s elective conference.

Finally, as this is Youth Day, June 16, we cannot but think of the young people of Soweto of 1976 who so courageously took to the streets and chanted slogans like “Liberation before Education” in front of an intimidating and ruthless foe. Today however, our minds must be unalterable in confronting a foe at least as intimidating and ruthless as before and we ask you to join us in declaring that now is the time of “Liberation through Education”.

Please consider volunteering at an IkamvaYouth branch near you.

Or if you can’t volunteer please consider a financial contribution towards ending poverty.

Or at the very least, please spread the word that we simply cannot end poverty without the access to quality opportunities that decent education provides and let’s hope that this finds traction in the corridors of influence.

* Photo: IkamvaYouth learners picket with Equal Education outside the Union Buildings in April 2011.

In the Business Day this week (7 June 2011), economist Peter Montalto finds inspiration in the aspirations of Ikamvanites. Montalto refers to his experience of visiting the Nyanga branch of IkamvaYouth a couple weeks ago and the impact this has had on his perspectives of South Africa and how important it is that we foster aspiration in our impoverished communities.

He writes,

In Nyanga, Ikamva Youth is working in the heart of the community in a local library. An army of enthusiastic volunteers, many of whom went through the project themselves, and a close connection with local universities provide the drive behind the project, and the energy comes from the leaders. Visiting the project, I saw young people hungry to learn, help each other and take advantage of the services Ikamva offers them. Most interesting, though, was that at its heart the work Ikamva is doing and the difference it makes is very simple — it is about providing a spark of hope, a path of opportunity and role models to look up to, all triggering aspiration.

The most basic tragedy of the townships is not even high unemployment (about 60% in Nyanga) or the conditions — it is a lack of aspiration. The encouraging thing, which Ikamva Youth has shown, is that though role models and simply providing information (and implicit incentives) about what options are available for youngsters and what they can achieve in life by putting the effort in at school, this aspiration can be ignited, grades can be improved and lives can be enriched. Once aspiration has been sparked, a basic entrepreneurial spirit in those who live in the townships causes a multiplier effect and youngsters then want to work hard, giving up time after school to be part of the programme, and so have a larger part in driving their own destiny. Much of Ikamva’s work relies on volunteers, who have been through the programme and then want to return to give something back.

I met Phillip and Thobela, two young people who had grown up in the township, been through the charity’s programme at school, got good enough grades to go to university, and now volunteer with the charity and are going on to great things. As an economist, I was delighted to find a common understanding with Phillip, who is passionate about econometrics. He is doing well at university and looking to go on to, for want of a better word, a “normal job” using his interest in statistics for the government or a company. Thobela, who now sits on Ikamva’s board, is passionate about chemistry. Getting into a good university allowed him to go on a study exchange to the US, and he now wants to become an academic teaching what he loves, a bug he has caught from his experience with the charity. Creating role models can become a virtuous cycle.

From my visit, I learnt many things. The issue of “untapped potential” is a much broader concept for SA than I first imagined. Government policy must be geared to providing the incentives and structure for personal aspiration of youngsters through mentoring and additional support in schools.

For the full article, visit http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=145012

What’s more, Andrew’s Action Learning Project (ALP) about “Scaling IkamvaYouth” was awarded best ALP for 2010. An executive summary of this report is listed here and if you are interested you can download it at the bottom of this article.

Andrew Barrett congratulated by Prof. Nick Binedell for best ALP on GIBS SECP 2010.

Executive Summary:

IkamvaYouth is remarkable not just in what it does but also in how it does it and central to the success of the IkamvaYouth model (so far) is the grassroots democratic emphasis that provides all IkamvaYouth stakeholders (i.e. the learners, coordinators and volunteers) with the tools to actively influence and shape their organisation.

This introductory report focuses on the challenge of scaling IkamvaYouth to achieve maximum impact while honouring the values that IkamvaYouth believes in. 

In looking for solutions to this challenge there are a number of interesting examples in the theoretical literature of alternatives to a traditional (hierarchical) top-down approach and of particular interest is the fascinating Brazilian for-profit company, Semco. The democratic workplace environment espoused by Semco and the impressive results it achieves provide practical pointers of a possible way to locate power and control in the IkamvaYouth structures that will remain true to its grassroots origins.

One potential solution to the IkamvaYouth scaling challenge is to franchise the IkamvaYouth model in a way similar to that done by Habitat for Humanity and in so doing ensure that power and control remain vested at the local branch level with autonomous structures pursuing the key IkamvaYouth objectives in a way that maintains IkamvaYouth’s impressive results within a pre-defined IkamvaYouth framework.

It also appears that pursuing a non-hierarchical approach means that a type of servant leadership is inevitable and, further, that a value-based democratic organisational structure seems to offer a highly attractive option that fits this bill. It seems certain that considerations of this kind would have multiple implications for the structuring of the organisation but perhaps the most fundamental movement required is a mind-shift away from the mainstream traditional hierarchical worldview in exchange for an approach that better reflects the integrity of IkamvaYouth as a truly grassroots organisation not only in name but in structure as well.

Click here: for the full report.