Change A Child's Life

Over the past 5 years United Through Sport has assisted 252 youth between the ages of 17 and 35 find employment for the first time. This is a significant achievement considering the huge level of youth unemployment in Nelson Mandela Bay which currently sits at 64%.

Through their employability programmes United Through Sport has assisted youth through three main pathways – Higher Learning, which involves supporting youth with access to tertiary education or vocational training courses; Ready to Work, which involves providing practical work experience opportunities and a monthly stipend for a period of 1 year; Equipping Entrepreneurs, which provides mentoring, capital support and training for youth starting their own businesses. Alongside these three main programmes they provide youth with practical employability skills and qualifications, such as funding and support to obtain their driving license alongside helping develop their CV and interview skills.

Through a combination of this multifaceted approach United Through Sport have an 89% employment success rate from youth entering the programme to finding full time employment. “There is a huge skills gap in South Africa and yet a lot of demand from employers for opportunities for youth with the right experience or skills.” Says Nick Mould, Director of United Through Sport South Africa. “By focussing on providing the necessary experience, skills and qualifications and then helping youth navigate the world of work we are able to make the connection between employers and new employees that is so often missing”.

By adding the youth employability and entrepreneurial focus to their programmes, United Through Sport has now expanded their offering to the community to provide a full Pathway of Development for children from 5 years old learning to read, right through to adulthood and employment.

“Over the years, we’ve realised it’s not enough to only provide short term interventions, we need to walk with our participants, providing support where needed at every stage of their development. That is the only way we can make a truly deep impact and help children transform their lives through sport”. Qondakele Sompondo, CEO, United Through Sport South Africa

The United Through Sport 2023 Annual Report is now available and it makes for really encouraging reading. The organisation demonstrated a real bounce back in program support and numbers reached with programming since the challenges of Covid. This level of support is deeply required as we are finding lasting impacts from the Covid-19 lockdown in the development (or lack there-of), in many of our beneficiaries and so now more than ever our programs are massively important.

In 2023 we reached 2838 children with our Early Inspiration Program – providing and introduction to physical education to help boost the physical and mental health and cognitive function of our early years participants aged 5 to 9 years old. As part of this we worked with 809 of these participants with literacy support to help those struggling the most learn to read and write to help set them up for future success and drastically increase their chance of remaining in formal education.

We worked with 8807 children in our Keep Active Program, delivering continued sports coaching and physical education along with key life skills and critical issues education to help our participants to develop the skills needed to navigate the challenging circumstances they grow up in. We saw a 90% improvement in participants mental health, 87% improvement in physical health and 86% improvement in knowledge of critical issues like sexual health, gender, alternatives to violence and substance abuse.

We also worked with 115 adolescent participants in our Girls and Boys Unite program where we work with each demographic separately to help them develop confidence, leadership and key skills in a safe, secure environment surrounded by positive adult role models. In this programme we identified improvements in confidence, resilience and leadership in 100% of participants, which is hugely encouraging for their future success.

93 participants aged 14 to 19 continued on our Pathway to Success in our Future Generations program supported with full bursaries to top level high schools where they receive excellent levels of academic education and sports coaching, drastically increasing their chances of progressing on to higher education.

Finally in our Youth Rising Program we continued to support 236 participants between the age of 18 and 35 to increase their chances of employability by supporting them with higher education, practical job skills training and internships and entrepreneurial support. This program continues to flourish with 86% of participants gaining employment after completing the program.

“We’d like to say a massive thank you to all our supporters and donors who have helped us over the past 12 months. The communities where we work have really been ravaged by the impact of Covid. However with the kindness of so many generous supporters we feel we were able to provide a really important service to so many and do our part to help our beneficiaries come through this challenging time”. – Qondakele Sompondo – CEO, United Through Sport

• Annual Report (PDF)