mPowa is a mobile application created for South African youth, its purpose is to empower young people to improve their employment readiness and direct them to life-changing opportunities. It is a member of the SA Youth Network and aims to fulfil its purpose by creating awareness and granting access to a wide range of support services that surround young people. 

The app provides young people with location-based and profile-specific information concerning services related to employment, education and entrepreneurship. For example, if there is a business incubation centre in Mamelodi and that’s where you are situated or close to, mPowa will alert you that the centre exists and inform you about the opportunities available. 

Why does mPowa exist?

“You would find that opportunities are available but the youth are not aware because of lack of information”, said Melvin Musehani who leads the team that is working on this project. 

Outlining how the app came about, Musehani said the South African office of the Presidency has been active in ensuring that employment, education and entrepreneurship services are made available for young people. However, it was found that most of these services are not being utilised by the youth and therefore mPowa was created to educate and lead SA youth to these opportunities. 

“Our primary goal is to help the youth find opportunities and the best way to do that is to provide them with as much information about employment, education and entrepreneurship”, he said. His view is that, provision of such information empowers young people to acquire at least one of the three: employment, education and business opportunities. 

The official launch of mPowa

mPowa will be launching on Youth Day, 16 June 2022. This day is meant to acknowledge the sacrifices of the 1976 youth who fought for the betterment of the education system during the apartheid era. 

On this day, the launch of mPowa will be an affirmation to SA youth that the agency to better education and economic opportunities that the youth of 1976 fought for, is available for them.

For youth by youth

Mxolisi Nene, a Mobile Developer who worked on developing mPowa said it was exciting to work on this project. He emphasised the importance of ‘having impact’ in other people’s lives: 

“Having a hand in helping a young person build a better future for themselves is something to be proud of but most importantly just being impactful in your country should be a priority”, he said. 

Adding to the note of having impact, Keketso Matsuma, the UI/UX Designer  of the application touched on the impact that user experience design has. “User experience design reduces cognitive strain for the user, it creates a better look and feel of the app and consequently makes it engaging, that’s what I wanted to do with the mPowa app”, he said. 

This app was created with love and inspiration, and where there’s the two you can never go wrong.