As a specialised placement agency, NeilsonYoung Consulting (NYC) works with many young people seeking jobs on a daily basis. As such, the company has developed a passion for the youth of South Africa and their well-being.
One of NYC's many corporate social investment projects is the mentoring of matriculants from disadvantaged backgrounds. Roxanne Broughton, Recruitment Consultant, has been tutoring scholars for several years. "The problem is that many children at rural schools don't get taught the curriculum," she says. "Many of them don't even have the books they need."
Broughton and other NYC staff identify the pupils that really want to learn and offer them private tuition. "These kids are so different from the private school children I've taught," says Broughton. "They really want to learn and they do everything you ask them to do."
All of the children she tutored last year passed their matric exams, and two of the girls did exceptionally well. One went on to study at Boston College as a legal secretary, while the other has applied for a bursary to study teaching.
"A lot of the children we tutor don't know about the study guides available," says Broughton. "Much of the time, I'll help them with one or two subjects and they'll find that it helps across the board, because they've actually learnt how to study."
There have been cases where NYC is unable to help students with a particular subject, such as in the case of a student who needed assistance with passing Sotho. "We will try to help learners to find another tutor," says Broughton, explaining that in this case, she discovered the headmaster of the school where the girl was enrolled was, in fact, qualified with a Masters degree in Sotho. He agreed to assist the learner, and she passed her Matric Sotho exam.
"We see the students during afternoons and weekends, but as it draws closer to their exams, we squeeze them in whenever we've got a free moment," says Broughton.
As NYC embarks on another of its CSI projects - teaching English lessons to women in the Diepsloot township as part of the Themba skills development project - the company believes that it will see even more students looking for private lessons to pass their Matric English exams.
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NeilsonYoung Consulting (NYC) was established in 2002 on the grounds that specialists with industry experience have better understanding of the human resource needs of ICTe companies than generalist recruitment agencies do.
Offering a specialised placement service, NYC focused its efforts on recruiting high calibre IT, executive and solution sales skills, and has since undertaken assignments for numerous leading organisations, both locally and internationally.
Among its clients are companies such as SAP, Cell C, Sun Microsystems, SAS Institute, MTN NS, Dell, WesBank and divisions of FirstRand, Dimension Data, Bytes Technology Group, ContinuitySA, Cisco Systems, The Receiver of Revenue, Accenture, Arivia, SABMiller, Mutual and Federal, LionOre International, and many others.
Although NYC remains a relatively small organisation, it has grown into a strong team of professional consultants with a world-class support infrastructure.
NeilsonYoung Consulting is rated AAA+ by EmpowerDEX, which is the highest rating possible.
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