eQaukeni Community Youth Organization Changing Lives For The Better

After seeing the alarming increase rate of teenage pregnancy, school dropouts in high school, increasing rate of substance abuse, and lack of unemployment in their community together with lack of literacy academically the trio Yanga Faku (Chairperson), Lwazikazi Macingwane(Treasurer), and Siphesihle Tantsi(Secretary) decided to start NPO eQaukeni Community Youth Organization which will mainly focus on enhancing their local community Mgojweni in Lusikisiki.

Their main objectives are to provide youth with vocational education to enhance their skills, and computer; literacy through the provision of a computer lab and provide adequate training towards promoting the culture of self-employment. To identify and provide the community with the necessary resources one will need for developing or embracing themselves.

As a group, they decided to name the organization after their village’s name. So far so good their idea of starting an organization has positively grown in such a manner that more youth is involved and they are working closely with Social Development, attracted sponsorship for a soccer tournament, and scored themselves an interview with Umhlobo Wenene FM. Due to lots of learners dropping out because of having difficulties in understanding Mathematics and Physical Sciences they decided to approach the school principal and teachers of the subjects in their community and started having afternoon classes and there’s been a positive change ever since they started. “We have engaged the Department of Home Affairs regarding issuing of Identity Documents to the learners in school. We however survive through donations and sponsorships, and we saw an opportunity of fundraising for our programs, we then started with farming vegetables and selling them to generate money for our programs,” she further explains.

Their most successful program thus far is donating sanitary towels and uniform, she believes that they have made a difference in the sense that more children and youth are going to school now as school uniform and sanitary towels is not a barrier or a challenge anymore.

“Our goals this year are to increase the passing rate of the high school learners and assist them with making applications for higher education. For those who cannot reach this stage there are educational programs that we host where we offer free programs as to how can one start their own business and self-development,” she says. She adds that another goal is to have a development center where one will be able to express or showcase their talent, a center which will consist of a computer lab, bakery section, tailoring section, handwork, and crafting section.

Implementing another program of the spelling bee in primary schools which will be in isiXhosa and English with the hope it will encourage children to read and focus on their studies.