Johannesburg, 8 March 2023 – The Maponya Mall Community Hub officially opens its doors this month, with a new state-of-the-art facility and access to capacity-building initiatives, skills programmes, information and partnerships to ensure economic and social inclusion for the Soweto community.
The opening, which forms part of an ongoing asset-based community development programme by Redefine Properties and our partners, which include the Dr Richard Maponya Institute, FNB Philanthropy and Afrika Tikkun Foundation, comes after Covid-19 halted the work which started in 2019.
Chief Sustainability Officer at Redefine Properties, Anelisa Keke, says the renewed and reinvigorated programmes will harness modern, cutting-edge tools to improve and positively impact non-profit organisations (NPOs), SMMEs and the youth operating within Soweto, at a time where this type of support is desperately needed.
“The youth development programmes are aimed at ensuring the youth have sufficient resources to lead productive and fulfilling lives, while NPO development will ensure that NPOs and community-based organisations (CBOs) have the skills and ability to provide the much-needed services in the community. SMME/ Entrepreneurs development will take place through incubation, acceleration and supply chain development programmes to ensure that entrepreneurs have the support and skills to develop their businesses further themselves,” says Keke.
“With South Africa facing unprecedented challenges of stagnating growth, inflation and joblessness – even as the recovery from Covid-19 begins – our new state-of-the-art facility and related programmes offer new avenues for renewal and hope,” she says.
The implementation of the Youth Development Programme in partnership with Afrika Tikkun will create a space for out of school youth to develop personal and technical skills.
“The Youth Accelerator Programme (YAP) is a four month programme focussing on guiding youth to develop a keen sense of self, community, goals and skills. The overall purpose of the programme is to assist youth with a holistic development programme that facilitates growth and maturity in personal decision-making and provides an individual with the tools to implement their decisions going forward,” says Keke. Two additional youth skills development programmes will focus on the Retail sector (Retail Academy) and ICT sector (ICT and Software Development) to ensure candidates have the specific skills needed to enter the employment market in those industries.
“With immense jobless hurdles to overcome in SA, these programmes are aimed at increasing the employability of our young generation and ensuring they can gain access to the full benefits of the modern digital workplace,” she adds.
With SMMEs at the heart of the South African economy and critical to its recovery, the SMME engagement is aimed at empowering the residents of Soweto to start and grow their own businesses.
Support programmes will help SMMEs prepare their products for market and participants will attend Master classes and coaching sessions to assist them with compliance and branding. The aim is to assist Soweto SMMEs to sell their products in retail stores.
Meanwhile, the Hub will host quarterly online training programmes for NPOs in local fundraising and mobilising support. The main objective of the training is to support the NPOs to:
• acquire the basic knowledge on effective fundraising and advocacy
• identify the current resource gaps, understand the different donors/ partners and their motives for giving.
• link branding communication to local resource mobilization.
• access the Change the Game Academy online platform and utilize the modules for further learning.
“Despite the recent challenges presented by Covid-19 and load-shedding, Redefine has persevered and ensured we live up to our purpose of creating and managing spaces in a way that changes lives. The launch of the Maponya Mall Community Hub is a key part of our reset which we hope will bring hope and opportunity,” concludes Keke.
ENDS//