In the next decade, over 1 billion young people will enter the job market. Among them are over 50% of Africa's graduates who are not ready for the employment market as per the Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA, 2013). Various surveys of employers on ‘Education to Employment’ indicate that lack of employee skill continue to be the leading reason for existence of entry level vacancies with a projection of 86m job vacancies by McKinsey & Company.

There thus exist a double edged problem of job-seeking graduates and skill-seeking employers who are constantly mismatched. TheBridgeAfrica addresses the lack of employable skills among graduates and shortage of entry level skill among employers through a co-training model.

TheBridgeAfrica delivers 6 weeks of work readiness training by setting up Career Resource Centers (CRCs) in universities alongside employers and professional associations. We provide graduates with career development planning (CDP) and access to mentors drawn from the Mandela Washington Fellows. TheBridgeAfrica exposes graduates to the world of work through our employer partnership model.

We treat this as transition from School-to-Work problem thus also addressing the core issue of insufficient engagement between educators and employers. We therefore provide a platform on which employers and educators step into each other’s world.

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