Giving Compass' Take:

• Company Tsogo Sun aims to create social investment programs by supporting initiatives that help advance young people's education paths. 

• Tsogo Sun also extends partnerships with local organizations in the community that provide extra services for students. By partnering with these organizations, Tsogo Sun helps to invest in mobilizing the community further. 

• Read about programs that help empower young individuals through art in South Africa. 

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” Nelson Mandela once declared. In South Africa, where inequality and poverty still persist, education has become the only way for many people to uplift themselves from poverty.

As a direct response to challenges faced by young people, who make up a majority of the country’s unemployed population, Tsogo Sun has put education at the heart of its social investment programmes.

The company supports initiatives that provide learners with the tools to reach their best potential throughout their education journey, from preschool to tertiary.

Tsogo Sun works with its partners and secondary schools to provide an online career guidance programme, designed to help learners from grades 9 to 12 discover careers that are best suited to their passion and future goals. The programme offers grade 9 learners an online evaluation exercise to identify interests and skills, and an aptitude test that matches their personality types to highlight suitable career opportunities. The results can then be used to guide learners’ subject choices.

For grade 10 learners, workshops offer a variety of topics, from career exploration and mentorship programmes, and all supported by Tsogo Sun staff volunteers.

Workshops for grade 11 learners then cover people skills, money skills, tertiary education options, job shadowing opportunities, and job-readiness training.

The peer-driven Columba Leadership programme operates in high schools to encourage young people to be self-motivated, work-ready, and employable. Columba empowers learners to become leaders in their schools by encouraging discipline in academic work and community building as a way to create a ripple of positive change in schools and communities.

Extending its educational reach further, Tsogo Sun also partners with the Amandla Safe-Hub programme to give youngsters from grades r to matric regular access to safe environments for facilitated sports, arts, life skills lessons, personal development, and accredited training courses.

Read the full article about investing in education by Lerato Mogoatlhe at Global Citizen