The social economy: breathing hope, creativity and development into communities
Coop by coop, classroom by classroom, block by block. What employment programmes can teach us about the role of public investment in building solidarity, new passion and new skills, while stimulating …
In his Inaugural Nelson Mandela Global Leadership Forum in New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani reflected that solidarity is not just a value, but astrategy. On a sunny Joburg winter day, we saw that strategy in action: with a glimpse of what’s possible when community wellbeing, food security, and environmental sustainability are given space (and funds) to drive economic activity. This matters right now, because asGilad Isaac recently highlighted, part of our task in pushing back against the economics of hatred and anti illegal-immigrant protests is to build an economy that produces enough decent work, income and adequate public services, funded by genuinely mobilising the resources that exist rather than pretending they don’t. This is where thesocial economycomes in: supporting activities and relations that place community wellbeing, social and environmental goals above profit alone, putting people and the environment back at the centre. To see this in action, we visited some Implementing Partners of theSocial Employment Fund(SEF), part of thePresidential Employment Stimulus. Farming troubleshootingWe started atAfrika Tikkun’s Green Acre Farmin Diepsloot, where SEF participants spend six months training on climate-resilience farming, hydroponics and poultry farming, before moving into the work experience on the farm itself along with agro-processing, managing orders and arranging logistics for market days. Farming has no weekends, and young people troubleshoot their knowledge in real time, working alongside the farm’s highly experienced manager Ryan Geere. Not every young person has access to land, so Afrika Tikkun has partnered with Urban Farm and ESquared Investment to pilot “hydrocoops”: compact units housing 90 chicks alongside hydroponic crops. Letshego Sehlapelo, an SEF participant and Tik Tok influencer, told us farming gave her time in nature, a new passion, new skills and income to supplement her nail tech business; she’s since enrolled at Gauteng City College for a farming management course. Young mindsNext was Freedom Park, Soweto, atPhakamani Young Minds Academy(PYMA), an organisation founded by Bokang Mokoena at just 19 years. PYMA tackles youth unemployment and early childhood literacy at once: it recruits and trains unemployed young people, then places them in Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres as Literacy Champions. Participants gain work experience and complete a level 4 ECD qualification, while also delivering literacy support that improves school readiness and reading outcomes – every rand spent doing double duty. PYMA is part of theCatch up Coalitionmobilised by the Learning Trust, showing what the afterschool sector can do at scale as a formal employer. And the need is great: the2030 reading panelinsights showed that only 30% of Grade 1-3 learners are reading at grade level in their home language, with 15% of Grade 3 learners unable to read a single word. Ntombi, who showed us around her placement ECD centre, had always wanted to work with children but hadn’t known where to start. “I had been unemployed since completing matric in 2015, until I started SEF in 2024; I am nearing completion of my learnership, and I’m hoping to start my own centre next year. ”Work experience exposes young people to work settings, but also fuels aspirations, hope and leadership in the making. It also provides an income that can support risk-taking, such as starting an ECD. Clean spacesOur last stop wasJoburg Inner City Partnerships (JICP), which works with Urban Space Management, Clean City SA and Constitutional Hill. Through SEF, JICP employs participants to manage waste across the inner city – and the results are visible in clean streets, tidy parks and public spaces that are usable, with waste diverted from constrained landfill and sold daily to Impact Ltd. Additionally JICP’s work focuses on activating public areas. We ended our visit in Hillbrow, at Donald MacKay Park in Berea, where “regular programming” with Dlala Nje, Sport for Social Change and Mould Empower Serve brings activities to learners and passersby alike. Thanks to a partnership with Radio Hillbrow, speakers were playing music to residents dancing, playing basketball or chess, or getting their blood pressure checked. It’s clear what when spaces are clean, safe and fun, the local economy thrives and residents feel they belong. On the drive home, we kept returning to the variety of activities and skills fuelling communities that we’d seen in a single day, all enabled by public employment – and that varietyisthe point. Food security, early literacy, youth and skills development, and the simple joy of shared public space – each reinforces the others and showsthe role public investment could play in shaping markets,for the collective good. This is what it looks like when an economy is asked to distribute purpose, skill, dignity and belonging instead of scarcity. Public employment programmes show that solidarity is what gets built, coop by coop, classroom by classroom, block by block, in the process of solving poverty and unemployment with communities. DMClotilde Angelucci provides Programme Support and Mokgadi Matuludi is a Researcher at the Presidential Employment Stimulus.