Heritage Day - Ikageng Building a future

As Heritage Day approaches – Argility works to build a legacy for future generations

Instead of looking to the past this Heritage Day, SA organisations should be planning for the future, says Nobuhle Zwane, human capital manager at Argility.

While Heritage Day gives all South Africans an opportunity to celebrate their history and cultural heritage, the day also offers them an excellent occasion to reflect on the legacy they will leave their descendants.

For the Argility Technology Group, enterprise software solutions innovator for the retail and supply chain industries, now is the time to be building a positive, empowering culture for young South Africans, which future generations will be able to celebrate as their shared heritage.

Argility’s vision is to build the heritage of generations to come, and to achieve this, the first step is unquestionably to start with investment in the youth of South Africa,” says Nobuhle Zwane, Argility Human Capital Manager.

“We believe that the future depends on helping young South Africans to become the best that they can be. This is why our corporate social investments focus heavily on education and youth development. We also do not believe in an approach of throwing money at development efforts and walking away – all too often, this can be a method used in corporate South Africa. Argility does it differently: staff – from executive level down – roll up their sleeves to engage actively with our CSI projects and their beneficiaries.”

Zwane says at present the group has chiefly engaged with two youth development central organisations, namely: Ikageng Itireleng and Releasing Eagles.

Ikageng Itireleng is an NPO in Orlando West, Soweto, which cares for and supports over 800 orphaned, vulnerable children and youth in the community. Ikageng’s prevention and therapy programmes, individual and family interventions, group work sessions, seminars and structured meetings aim at collective empowerment and facilitating processes that help the poor, vulnerable and marginalised to regain control over their lives.

Releasing Eagles, supported by Argility, strives to raise the level of consciousness among the youth around their purpose in life and their impact on their world. Releasing Eagles creates platforms and environments where the potential of young leaders is incubated and nurtured through strategic mentoring partnerships and with youth workshops, staged in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

“Programmes such as these don’t simply offer short-term assistance – they actively work to change by empowering young people to improve their lives,” says Zwane. “We believe that if all of corporate South Africa started focusing on initiatives that deliver sustainable impacts that truly inspire our youth, we would go a long way towards achieving our country’s development goals,” Zwane concludes.

Source: IT Web