Cause Index

Kommunity Group Projects Foundation

OUR PROGRAMMES THAT DRIVE OUR MISSION
1 Grass Roots Skills Development
We Believe
That skills development begins at a foundational level with youth in school. Our firm belief is that by empowering youth with the correct tools we not only offer them an opportunity for a better future but also give them the power to determine their own destiny. Through our Kommunity Career Handbook or KCH we provide youth in school with career guidance to help align their interests and passions to lifelong careers.

Critical skills can best be described as:
�Scarce and critical skills refer to an absolute or relative demand, current or future, for skilled, qualified and experienced people to fill particular roles/professions/occupations or specialisations in the labour market.�
The lack of information, qualitative and quantitative career guidance programmes on a national level, severely prejudices our youth and contributes to an ever-increasing youth unemployment crisis. The most important skills development target market is our youth (who suffer from the highest levels of unemployment in South Africa). The development of critical skills can further be disseminated as:
Reactive Skills development
The development and provision of skills to those out of school either having attained matric or dropped out of school. This includes tertiary qualified persons that require skills development in other areas. This is by far the most expensive area of skills development. This sector continues to grow year on year.
Pro-active skills development
The development of skills and career path opportunities at an early stage in order to maximise opportunities for our youth so that the entry and integration into a relevant skills pool is fluid and impactful. Proactive skills development is an absolute necessity, in that, without it, the number of youth entering into unemployment (and requiring a reactive skills development intervention) will continue to grow exponentially, costing the economy funding it cannot afford.
The Kommunity Career Handbook programme focuses on the pro-active skills development area.
Career Guidance as the Foundation for Skills Development
According to the United Nations statistics, there are 1.2 billion youth aged 15-24 globally as of 2015, accounting for one out of every six people (17%) worldwide. This is predicted to increase to one out of every four people, which means there would be 1.3 billion youth by 2030. This global trend has particular pertinence to Africa, because Africa has the largest concentration of young people in the world. According to the United Nations, 226 million youth aged 15-24 lived in Africa in 2015 representing nearly 20% of Africa's population, making up one fifth of the world's youth population. In South Africa , our high youth unemployment rate, as a consequence of low skills attainment, is exasperated by a large portion of high school learners who have no access to information or guidance that will steer them into the economy. This challenge includes:
� Learners do not understand the opportunities available to them and tend to lose interest in completing school
� Learners do not choose subjects aligned with their interests and thereby prejudice their opportunities for success
� Learners do not pursue opportunities available to them after matric, due to a lack of knowledge
� Incorrect subject choices lessen the possibility of attaining critical skills
� Teachers and parents are not equipped to offer learners effective career guidance
The University of Pretoria puts in plainly:
�Two reasons for high dropout rates are the following:
1. Learners choose the wrong programme.
2. Learners do not ensure that their Grade 10 subject choices align with their preferred programme.�

South African context:
Career Guidance directly impacts South Africa, on a number of distinct levels:
� Our skilled workforce continues to be attracted by lucrative offshore opportunities in the �global village�
� A lack of effective career guidance in the majority of our schools means that we are not directing our learners to interest-aligned subjects and careers; in turn contributing to higher than necessary unemployment
� We are being forced to pay significantly above market related prices for a smaller skills pool
� The movement of skills is causing a price war amongst the many local organisations requiring these skills, ultimately leading to our services becoming non-competitive in the global marketplace
� Majority of learners do not have the necessary standardised information and tools available to them to make informed subject and career decisions

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Empowering women and securing the future through water conservation
Our Hope
Is that through our robust low-tech solution, Iziwasha, we can begin to affect change in the lives of millions of women across the developing world by giving them back time. Research indicates that when more income is put into the hands of women, child nutrition, health and education improve. Our hope of creating a better future is the empowerment of women and combining this with the conservation of a lacking resource, water.

IziWasha was born from a deep understanding of the numerous challenges by the bottom of the economic pyramid constituents across Sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa this constitutes almost 9 million households. Women in these communities spend hours every week washing their families� clothes by hand. These households are concentrated in low to mid-income communities in emerging markets.
Hand washing not only takes up valuable time and energy, but also causes physical pains and uses large volumes of water at a time while in some cases this is done under a running tap or by a river which has long term ecological impact on the local environment. Our programme mission through IziWasha is to improve the lives of these women and promote water conservation by providing a simple, affordable and sustainable manual washing device designed to make washing simple and saves wate during washing.
IziWasha is an award winning, low-cost, manual washing device which has been endorsed by the United Nations. It is easy to use and environmentally friendly. Engineer designed, the product delivers efficiency similar to an automatic washing machine. Iziwasha mimics the action of an electric machine. When a user, standing upright, pumps the product up and down in a bucket of water, it forces the water in the bucket through specially positioned holes in the product cleaning the clothes in half the time of handwashing.
Our research shows that the time women save from hand washing is effectively applied in other areas of their lives. This time is used to generate income, participate in community upliftment initiatives, starting a small business, joining a local co-op or planting a vegetable garden. We also found that the women who participated in our research also allocated this additional time to their children, reading, learning and studying.

Social and Environmental Impact: People Planet Profit
Based on our targeted use of 4 million women with an average of 25% + water saving compared to traditional handwash this programme can save upward of 4.6 million kilolitres of water worth $6.9 million. IziWasha contributes to a 50% time saving from traditional handwash, this equates to 370 million hours saved worth $520 million. This is calculated based on a minimum wage per hour of US$1.40

3 Health & HIV/AIDS
Our Dream
The realisation of an HIV/Aids free generation that is empowered to make positive and responsible sexual decisions. The goal of this programme is to add value to sexual health by encouraging and educating youth to practice safe and responsible sexual behaviour. By changing behaviour through the provision of a Mojo Box we aim to destigmatise condom carriage and the use of condoms by youth. -Since the start of the HIV/Aids epidemic, an estimated 74.9 million people have become infected with HIV and 32 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses.

It is our assertion that condoms, as a product and under perfect conditions, are effective. Studies on the effectiveness of condoms are based on the presumption that when condoms are used they are in the same condition they were in when they left the factory or retail outlet, yet users lack of the appropriate knowledge to care for their condoms correctly, and general bad habits inadvertently expose condoms to risks that make them ineffective.

Research illustrates that a significant percentage of condoms are damaged through human error, after they leave the factory or retail outlet and are thus rendered ineffective. A substantial amount of the human error culminating in the damage of condoms is due to the manner in which convenience has led people to store and handle them. In South Africa some estimates place damaged condoms as high as 43% of all condoms used. 80% of condom users do not store and carry their condoms in a safe way. 80% of condom users are at risk of HIV/AIDS infection.

Manufacturers universally agree that wallets, pockets and bags are harmful places to store condoms, as these storage places are unsafe environments for them. Condoms are not supposed to be exposed to direct light, excess heat or any sharp objects. Wallets constrict condoms, resulting in the potential for them to burst. A pocket exposes condoms to sharp objects such as pens and hair pins, while bags create a similarly non-conducive environment. The risk of engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse is well documented and, unbelievably, is matched by the risk of sexual intercourse with damaged condoms. Human behaviour is difficult to reform.

The Condom Case� is designed in such way to carry three condoms at any time, and ensure that these condoms remain in pristine, factory condition for the duration of their carriage in the Condom Case� , thus immediately and directly contributing to decreasing the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, unwanted/unplanned pregnancy and the transfer of sexually transmitted diseases.

Programme mission:
� To save lives
� Support the practice of safe sex
� Encourage and promote positive sexual behaviour
� Destigmatise condoms use and condom carriage
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