22 October 2014

Award-winning Youth Leadership Initiative comes to Bloemfontein!

Submitted by: Rufaro Mudimu

Katleho Modikeng is a soft-spoken young man from Qwa Qwa. In 2012, when he was 15 years old, Katleho led a project called Sisonke Entertainment Club. Sisonke Entertainment Club gave Saturday  morning extra lessons, games and sports for Grade 6-8s in his community. Why did he do this? Katleho was part of the enke: Trailblazer Program and the club was his Community Action Project. His actions and work earned him recognition in the 2012 Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans. Katleho is just one of hundreds of incredible stories of youth leading action through participating in enke: Make Your Mark’s programs. It is the stories and experiences of youth like Katleho that have brought enke: Make Your Mark to launch a hub in Bloemfontein this December.  

enke: Make Your Mark (enke) is a youth development organization that inspires, trains and supports young South Africans  taking action on the most urgent social issues in their communities.  enke empowers young people to initiate community-based development projects, thereby creating change on the issues they care about most. Since 2009, the organisation has worked with over 1,000 youth from across South Africa. In the last 3 years, over 80% of participants the enke: Trailblazer Program have initiated community action projects. These have had an impact on over 18,000 people in communities across South Africa.  

The enke: Trailblazer Program is a program for Grade 10 and 11 students where they receive skills development training and practical experience designing, initiating and implementing a project of social action that tackles a social issue in their community. enke is actively recruiting youth from entering these grades in 2015 to apply to be part of a new Trailblazer Program intake, which kicks off this December.  A special focus is on youth from the Free State, Northern Cape and North West provinces to participate. 

“Through the Trailblazer Program, young people feel inspired and energised,” says Pip Wheaton, co-founder and CEO of enke. “They realise that they are not alone in caring about their communities and, through enke, get the support and network they need to be successful in creating change in their communities. They realise that they don’t have to wait for someone else to tackle the issues they are facing.”  

“What makes our program unique is that we work with young people from across the socio-economic spectrum; rich, poor, black, white – we create a forum where young people from all backgrounds can come together, discuss issues that affect them, and learn from each other and their different life experiences,” she continues.   Through her work at enke, Pip Wheaton has received the prestigious recognition as an Ashoka Fellow. In addition, in 2012 enke received the Investing in the Future and Drivers of Change Civil Society Award for their work. The organisation runs its programs in central hubs that bring together youth from all provinces. In this way, enke is able to make its work accessible to all.  

In addition to its existing intakes in Johannesburg and Cape Town, the organisation is bringing its award-winning work to Bloemfontein. This December enke will be hosting the first ever Bloemfontein-based intake of the Trailblazer Program, kicking off with the 7 day leadership conference called the enke: Forum. The inaugural Bloemfontein Forum is taking place at the University of the Free State from Saturday 6 December 2014 to Friday 12 December 2014. This event will bring together young participants aged between 18 – 30 years of age, from across South Africa, who represent enke’s two youth programs (Ignition Program and Trailblazer Program).    The 7 days are filled with intensive training focused on the development of self-awareness, the awareness of others and context, as well as project management training. At the end of Forum, Trailblazers design and run projects for a total of 9 months to address whatever issues in their community they feel most passionate about – we call these, Community Action Projects (CAPs).  

“With our intake in Bloemfontein we are particularly focusing on engaging youth in the Free State, North West and Northern Cape Provinces. We’re extremely excited to be partnering with the Finnish Embassy Pretoria and the University of the Free State to make this possible,” says Rufaro Mudimu, Chief Programs Officer at enke: Make Your Mark.  

“We know that there are more youth like Katleho out there,” comments Elias Sebeo, Program Coordinator for Bloemfontein. “As a young person from the Free State, I know that these kinds of initiatives are very beneficial to young people. It’s an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.”  

enke: Make Your Mark is calling on all interested youth, schools and community organisations to apply to be part of the enke: Trailblazer Program  Bloemfontein Intake. enke is looking for 125 young people currently in Grade 9 or 10 to be part of this prestigius program this December.  

Applications are available online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/trailblazerapplicationBFN . Or contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more information.  

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