After a whirlwind first quarter of the year, the BPS team has just opened the doors of its second pilot site in Orange Farm, Gauteng.
Based on the experience of 4 months of implementation research in its first site in Atlantis, the multi-disciplinary BPS team revised the original training material for coaches, mobilisers and site managers; conducted on-the-ground stakeholder engagements to get a better understanding of the lived realities of young people in Orange Farm; secured and set up a venue that is conducive to quality coaching and support for young people; and upgraded the case management system to allow for more efficient monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance at site level. The brand new, full site team began its onboarding and training trajectory on Monday, June 13th.
Continuing to place partnership for change at its core, the pilot site in Orange Farm is made possible by the long-term support of the European Union – via the Capacity Building Programme for Employment Promotion, based in the Government Technical Advisory Centre in the National Treasury, a fund that is now closed but that has allowed the team to put down solid foundations for this implementation phase of the BPS work; The Standard Bank Tutuwa Foundation funding for staff salaries and operational resources of the site; The City of Johannesburg’s generous offering of venue space at the Skills Centre in Orange Farm; the National Association for Child and Youth Care Workers’ support to recruit knowledgeable child and youth care workers; and the DG Murray Trust’s careful eye for continuous quality assurance of the coaching and other site related practices. SALDRU and the Centre for Social Development in Africa (CSDA) (at the University of Johannesburg) continue to hold the overall project management and research angles.