This is an IHeart podcast.

I'm Maeve Higgins and this is Salvable.

Interviews with the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the world's biggest problems.

I'm Nicola Golombeck. I'm the founder and chairman of world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the world's biggest problems.

I'm Nicola Golombeck. I'm the founder and chairman of the Harambi Youth Employment Accelerator.

So my solvable is to reduce significantly youth unemployment in the South African economy and increase young people's access to future work,

which is going to be globally and locally sustainable.

South Africa has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world.

Nicola's organisation, the Harambi Youth Employment Accelerator,

says that about 40% of this generation of 18 to 34 year olds are expected

to never secure stable work. Imagine what that does to an individual and then imagine that it's

happening to 40% of young people in your country. The impact is enormous, not only on the individual's well-being

and health, but imagine the loss of potential, missing out on the skills and energy of these

people who really should be shaping the country's future. In South Africa, that lack of opportunity

is still skewed by the legacy of apartheid and now

alongside rapid globalization, which has left many young people geographically removed

from job opportunities.

You see, under apartheid, non-whites were forcibly moved to areas far from city centers,

and that inequality endures today in the time and

money people have to spend travelling even to find work. A 2016 study found that young unemployed

people spend $560,000, that's around $38 per month, searching for work, and that's more than the average per person

income of their households. Our guest today, Nicola Golambic, is tackling the issue head on.

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