With SA's unemployment rate sitting at an estimated 26%, the county's youth are facing a number of challenges when it comes to securing jobs and building their futures.
Late last month, thousands marched for economic freedom, demonstrating the growing frustration and dissatisfaction among the younger generation. The Institute of Race Relations' SA Survey shows unemployment among 15- to 24-year-olds is 51%, more than twice the national unemployment rate.
It is with these challenges in mind that the Praekelt Foundation has created a mobile career social network, introduced at the Tech4Africa conference last month.
Called Ummeli, the Nguni word for 'mediator', the mobile platform is available on YoungAfricaLive (YAL), a virtual community for discussing issues related to love, sex and relationships, with more than 500 000 active users.
The Praekelt Foundation says the network aims to create opportunities for young, primarily poor Africans - the segment of society most affected by unemployment, as found in several recent YAL polls.
One poll asking YAL's community what the single biggest challenge facing today's youth is drew close to 4 500 responses, of which 2 233 said a lack of jobs was an even more significant challenge than HIV/Aids.
“That over half of South African youths are currently unemployed represents a tremendous waste of human potential,” says founder Gustav Praekelt. “We believe a new generation of mobile social tools, such as Ummeli, can enable us to activate this untapped potential and allow young South Africans to create new ways to engage and support their communities.”
The site is intended to act as a platform for advice, suggestions, connections and exchanging ideas among a community of young jobseekers. Registered Ummeli users will also be able to share job posts and information on bursaries and grants. Other tools allow users to edit their CVs on their phones, submit CVs for jobs, or use the CV Coach tool to create their CVs from scratch.
“There are simply too many people for the amount of jobs available, and fraudsters who falsify CV information get jobs based on these lies, leaving persons with legitimate qualifications without the job,” she adds.
Transformative tech
According to Praekelt, more than 13 000 users have joined Ummeli since its debut a fortnight ago, with growth continuing unabated.
He adds that a number of organisations have reached out to partner with the site, including job placement sites, NGOs and government.
“One of the most exciting developments has been discussions we have started with Sangonet, which has the largest database of active NGOs in SA, regarding integrating its learnership programmes with Ummeli.”
While Ummeli is aimed at creating opportunities for “young, primarily poor Africans”, the latest AMPS 2011A stats show cellphone use among 15- to 19-year-olds remains skewed towards higher LSM segments. In the LSM 1-4 segment, 49% of males and 63% of females owned, rented or used a cellphone, compared to 87% of males and 89% of females in LSMs 8-10.
But Praekelt argues that although mobile phone ownership may be skewed towards higher LSMs, even in the LSM 1-4 bracket, more than 50% of users have individual phones.
“Mobile telephony is the single most transformative technology available to young people living in Africa. Furthermore, Ummeli is completely free to use for anyone on Vodacom, which makes it the only completely-free resource available to jobseekers at the base of the pyramid.”
Ummeli can be accessed for free, with no bandwidth charges, while users are on the YAL platform, on Vodacom. Once users click on a job link or the URL of a company advertising a job, they will be charged normal bandwidth rates to access that URL. Ummeli will be initially tested within YAL while a standalone Ummeli mobi platform is created.
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