Cape Town youth empowered through construction training

In Cape Town’s Northern and Southern Suburbs, a local initiative is helping young people build more than just houses, it’s helping them build futures.

C & I Projects is training youth in construction and home improvement trades, empowering them to create jobs, grow small businesses and drive community development.

They train young people in the construction and home improvement trades so that they can empower other small businesses or even operate their own businesses.

Through the work, these entrepreneurs are taught to stand on their own feet and forge collaborations across the private, public, and community sectors.

C & I Projects managing director Cheslyn Baaitjies says the aim is to get the youth to believe that there is more for them.

“It’s how do you take a carpenter in one road that could necessarily apply the skills to nine other individuals in that same road.”

He adds, “This is where I came from, and that is where I am heading.”

To listen to Cheslyn Baaitjies, managing director of C & I Projects Trading, in conversation with CapeTalk’s Clarence Ford, click the audio below: