Ten Reasons To Invest R10 Into South Africa’s Youth

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill

The Jump Start Production Class of 2018 celebrating their skills development achievements.

Generosity is a powerful action and over our decade-long journey we’ve had the privilege of witnessing many inspiring stories from our beneficiaries. We’re proud to share some of the impact we’ve had this year through our education and skills development programmes.

1. Like the United Nations, we believe access to quality education, as well as participating in a sustainable career, are critical to breaking the cycle of poverty and inequality. Globally, “783 million people live below the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day with a large portion of those from Sub-Saharan Africa”*. Our programmes tackle these pressing challenges.

2. Our administration and fundraising costs are kept low to ensure more funds are channeled into our programmes. In F2018, 82c of each rand was invested into our beneficiaries.

3. Our MRP Foundation Schools Programme provides mentorship for school leadership and empowers educators with professional skills and content knowledge. In 2018 we scaled from 38 schools to 98 schools and focused on selecting schools and preparing for implementation in 2019.

4. Classroom support in content delivery in critical learning areas such as Numeracy, Literacy, English First Additional language, Maths, Natural Science, Creative Art and Physical Education help develop knowledgeable, healthy and creative learners. This year over 90 000 learner’s, 2765 teachers and 1071 School Government Body Members benefited from our Schools Programme.

5. Early childhood development is critical for setting up youth, and our country, for future success. We have invested into future generations by partnering with The Unlimited Child to support 31 Early Childhood Development Centres in Hammarsdale, KwaZulu-Natal and 31 Centres in QwaQwa, Free State.

6. We realise we can’t single handedly solve our county’s most pressing challenges so we work closely with like-minded organisations, who are experts in their fields, to co-create and activate our youth development programmes.

7. We work with industry partners in our skills development programmes to train youth and then link them to meaningful career opportunities. Since 2007 over 30,063 unemployed youth have been upskilled through our Jump Start work readiness programme with 13,664 job placements in retail and supply chain.

8. Our Jump Start programmes develop critical skills required for Retail and the Supply Chain. All Professional Retail graduates of the 2018 class graduated with a job in hand.

9. Every year, we support worthy NPO’s and organisations that impact South African youth. This year over R400,000 worth of value was given to 76 organisations through vouchers to spend on homeware, clothes, and sporting equipment at MRP, Mr Price Home, Mr Price SPORT and Sheet Street. Some of these organisations included:

Friends of Parent and Child
This organisation from Hartbeespoort in Gauteng assists vulnerable children for example, child-headed households. They used a voucher for MRP to purchase new clothes for the children they support.

Boys and Girls Club
This Tongaat facility, in KwaZulu-Natal, organises after-school programmes for school-aged young people. We assisted them with a voucher to purchase new sheets and comforters for the youth who stay in the facility.

Friends of Chintsa
Based in the Eastern Cape, we assisted this Non-Profit purchase black takkies from Mr Price SPORT to be used by children for school.

10. We want to impact as many young people as possible and are continually searching for sustainable ways to scale up our programmes. Our goal is to expand our holistic schools model to include 200 schools and achieve even higher employment rates after graduation.

Thank you to everyone who has generously supported us, your contributions enable us to break the cycle of poverty and inequality in South Africa. If you want to help us empower even more youth in South Africa and give them access to quality education and skills development, donate R10 online.

**Statistics in this article are sourced from the United Nations Sustainable Goals website.