Every Youth Month, South Africans get a chance to reflect on the victories and challenges faced by the youth over the past year. This reflection affords them the opportunity to examine possible ways of overcoming the challenges as well as maintaining the positives. 

Today South Africa’s youth are grappling with a record-breaking bad economy, a rocketing cost of living, and high youth unemployment, as well as lifestyle challenges that include load shedding and safety concerns.

It’s well known that South Africa has significant and costly skills shortages across a number of sectors, even though 46,5 percent of the youth were unemployed in Q1 of 2023, according to Statistics SA. The lack of available skills in fields including financial services, technology, media, telecommunications, healthcare, and manufacturing has massive consequences for the country, including stunting overall economic growth.

But not everything is doom and gloom!

As a non-profit enterprise, Relate Bracelets is making an effort to support the youth of South Africa to improve their lives and how they interact with the world around them. 

Dalit Shekel, brand consultant for Relate Bracelets, says, "Degrees don’t guarantee jobs. A far better approach may be to focus on upskilling and reskilling. This is a process that can be used to identify talents to support and improve or to offer the youth chances to make a living through skills acquisitions that don’t always fall under the formal tertiary education ambit. For example, our bracelets are made by beaders from communities such as Ikamva Labantu, as well as refugees and township youth. We employ people with a natural skill to craft beadwork and engage them in the fashion ecosystem, giving them opportunities to earn a living and create beautiful, environmentally friendly pieces."

Through the sale of beaded bracelets that help charities raise money and create jobs for people in underprivileged communities, Relate has raised over R73 million over the past 10 years. By directly supporting youth empowerment and upskilling initiatives, both internally and externally, Relate has forged thousands of earning opportunities for the vulnerable and constantly seeks new philanthropic partnerships in its quest to reshape the future for South Africa’s youth.