In South Africa, youth employment is a persistent and troubling issue, with 60 percent of the country’s young people currently unemployed.

In 2019, FoodForward South Africa (FFSA) launched its Supply Chain Internship Programme, focusing on the lack of skills training that they identified as a key contributing factor exacerbating the issue. The 6-month program was piloted in Cape Town in 2019. Participants received academic training in warehousing and logistics, paired with on-the-job practical experience, and received a stipend of 5,000 rand, or about $286, per month.

The program proved successful and continues today with cohorts 14 to 16 working in Cape Town and at the food bank’s KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng locations. There are more than 60 proud graduates, 19 of whom have continued working with and for the food bank. Others secured contract warehouse jobs through FFSA contacts with major retail partners.

While the program focuses on education and training related to warehouse operations, including food safety practices and freight handling, the intensive program also incorporates general skills training. There are six modules in the program, beginning with literacy instruction and self-management and professional development, which are critical to anyone entering the workforce, no matter the field. The training also incorporates knowledge and understanding of the realities of HIV/AIDS in the workplace, given that approximately 18 percent of adults in South Africa are living with HIV.

Beginning in module four, the participants advance to the supply chain program. This work focuses on managing administrative records and documentation, receiving and dispatching freight, understanding occupational health and safety standards, moving and storing hazardous freight, and lifting machines. Lessons are followed by on-site training in the warehouse.

Each participant graduates with a portfolio detailing their experience. In the final two weeks of the program, they are also trained and licensed to operate a forklift. In total, students spend 29 days in a classroom and 75 days in the workplace, providing a comprehensive and rigorous training program that readies graduates to pursue a variety of employment opportunities, including with the food bank.

Dylan Simpson was one of the program’s very first participants. He graduated from the inaugural cohort in 2019 and went on to find work in FFSA’s warehouse. He is still a proud employee of the food bank, having gained his code-10 driver’s license to serve as one of FFSA’s truck drivers delivering food and grocery products throughout the community.

“Over the past year and a half, I’ve been driving the five-tonne and eight-tonne trucks,” Simpson said. “I am now in the process of getting my code 14 license, so I can drive trucks with trailers.”

Andy Du Plessis, FFSA’s managing director, is enthusiastic about the benefits the program offers, both for the young people and his organization. “The program offers multiple benefits to FFSA, including serving as an integral pathway to staff positions as the organization grows and providing a talented labor force that moves food fast,” said Du Plessis.