​The Human Resource Development (HRD) unit in the Gauteng Department of Social Development has awarded fifty (50) bursaries to unemployed youth who wish to further their studies with a university of their choice in the country.
According to Human Resource Development Unit’s Fatima De Oliveira the selection process was not easy as they came across numbers of challenges such as some of the applicants did not apply at the universities and they were unable to assist as approval is based on the student being accepted into university.

“However most do qualify but some are over the youth age and others applied for fields not funded by the Department,” says De Oliveira.

De Oliveira says HRD unit is divided into three sub sections which deal with Employee Development such as; skills programmes, internal bursaries and induction for new employees and it is managed by Ms. Jacqui Madima.

“I manage the external candidates where we implement learnerships and deal with external candidates. This year we are currently running with a ECD learnership for 50 unemployed youth,” she says. She says the third unit is managed by Antionette Ineson which deals with PMDS.

“Currently we have placed 320 interns in the Department for a period of 2 years and all the interns attend one skills programme which is also coordinated by us including the external stakeholders,” added De Oliveira.

For the year 2022 the department has awarded 50 bursaries to the unemployed youth in the following fields: Clinical Psychology, Community Development, Occupational Therapy, Financial Management, Demography, and Population Studies.

Ineson says what she enjoys most about her job is: “It is very inspirational to award a learnership or bursary to young persons who want to improve their lives through education and increase their chances of getting employment”.

“Many cannot afford to study further so having this opportunity motivates them to do well during their studies.”

“My responsibility is to ensure that all the adverts go out for the bursaries and internships. I also ensure that the tender is placed for the appointments of a learnership training provider. Also included is Induction of all new learners, interns and bursary holders, and monitoring of all programmes and monitoring of the budget allocated to unemployed training initiatives says De Oliveira.

De Oliveira added that the youth should choose the field of studies very carefully as this will be their future.

“It will be tragic if you studied something that will be boring in the long run and choose a career that inspires you, choose something that you feel you could make a difference in someone’s life”.