About Junior Achievement Africa
JA (Junior Achievement) Africa is a member of JA Worldwide. As one of the world’s largest youth-serving NGOs, JA Worldwide activates youth for the future of jobs.
Through the delivery of hands-on, blended learning in financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship, we empower young people to grow their entrepreneurial ideas, hone their work skills, manage their earnings, and secure better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities.
With more than 100 member countries, the JA Worldwide network is powered by over 470,000 volunteers and mentors, who serve more than 10 million young people around the world each year.
The Need
Sixty per cent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa and about 37% of its workforce are youth under age 25. By 2025, two-thirds of Africa’s population will be under 25 years of age and Africa will be home to 25% of the world’s youth population.
Every year approximately 7 to 10 million young people in the region enter into a weak labor market, where high unemployment, low productivity, and poverty-level income are commonplace.
History
Junior Achievement was founded in the United States in 1919, and expanded into Africa in the 1970s. Today, JA’s programs are delivered to youth around the world. Since its inception, JA has impacted more than 125 million young people around the world and has broadened its program scope to include in-school, after-school and out-of-school programs and activities.
JA Africa has a presence in 14 JA countries in sub-Saharan Africa and collectively they reached m
ore than 180,000 youth in 2014/15 alone. JA Africa Works in Botswana, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
What we do
JA Africa provides young people with the tools and skills they need to be prepared for their professional futures either as entrepreneurs who create jobs for themselves and others or as employees who add value to their employers. JA’s primary strengths are in curriculum development and delivery.
The Company Program®
This is a program designed to provide basic business education to high school students through a variety of hands-on activities, supporting a diverse range of learners. Currently impacting more than 380,000 young people a year globally, the JA Company Program teaches how to start and run their own businesses by developing and marketing a product or service with the help and guidance of local business volunteers. The pedagogic approach is highly experiential and “hands-on”, with volunteers serving as teachers, mentors and role models. This is a program designed to provide introductory business education to high school students through a variety of hands-on activities, and supporting a diverse range of learners.
ITS TYME: Immersion Training Strategy Targeting Young Marginalized Entrepreneurs
ITS TYME is a hand’s on, highly impactful immersion training program that provides life skills, business education, mentoring and access to finance and industry specific apprenticeship opportunities to marginalized African youth. The ITS TYME experience enhances the ability of young semi-literate young men and women in Africa to acquire business skills and use innovative thinking to expand and enhance their career options and livelihoods.
JOB SHADOWS
Job Shadows offer students a unique opportunity: a visit to a professional work environment and insights into how to find and keep a fulfilling career. Students participating in the program acquire and apply the skills needed in demanding and ever-changing workplaces. Students are able to recognize career clusters and potential job positions; understand the importance of researching the requirements needed to earn a position; and develop job-hunting tools, such as networking, resumes, and interviewing skills. The program expands the horizons of future workers, helping them understand the mutual suitability of certain jobs. After a job shadow a young student may learn that lawyers don’t only work in law firms, or that the demand of certain jobs for extensive desk time does not suit their personalities.
CHA CHING
CHA CHING is a financial literacy/ personal economics curriculum for students in primary school aged seven to twelve. The program emphasizes economic and social studies content while providing a strong focus on finance, mathematics, planning and analytical skills. Students are encouraged to use divergent and critical thinking to make decisions on how they manage their money in their daily lives, applying the four concepts of Earn, Save, Spend and Donate, which support positive attitudes as they explore and enhance their money-management skills.
LEADERSHIP CAMPS
JA Girls Leadership Camps bring together girls from the ages of 14-19 to help them develop their life plans; learning important lessons on a variety of subjects including health, wealth, family and professionalism. Over a three-day period, girls are coached by prominent and accomplished professional women from influential companies, from government and from civil society. They begin to think about what kinds of jobs they aspire to have and what it takes to get there; they explore how many children they want to have, what kinds of schools they want their children to go to and the affordability of their lifestyles including school fees, health insurance and vacations. They begin to understand the implications of all their life decisions. The program helps young girls begin to think about life purposefully and to start that now. It triggers self-discovery and ambition to lead that goes hand in hand with practicing leadership among other things.