Diversity B-BBEE, a leading transformation consultancy and facilitator, is changing its name to Diversity Empowerment to signal its advocacy of a new model for empowerment that shifts the focus from compliance towards sustainability, bottom-line impact and creating opportunities for the youth to thrive. The goal is to improve corporate sentiment around empowerment while creating sustainable opportunities for empowerment beneficiaries – especially young, unemployed people who are seeking opportunities to develop their skills and become economically active.
Diversity Empowerment announced the name change today at a launch for Ntsikelelo Mzibomvu’s new book, Reimagining Myself – A Journey of Personal Transformation and Entrepreneurial Thinking. Sponsorship of this book launch reflects Diversity Empowerment’s commitment to new ways of thinking about and inventing South Africa’s future. Based on Mzibomvu’s insights from 10 years of involvement in the youth development space, the book is an easy-to-read guide to the world of personal development and self-actualisation within the South African context.
Diversity Empowerment focuses on creating ecosystems of businesses, social enterprises and communities that work together to drive benefits for all parties. Using the codes of good practice as guidance, Diversity Empowerment works with organisations to adopt transformation strategies that create opportunities for the youth and contribute towards building South Africa’s skills base.
Through its youth skills development and training programmes, Diversity Empowerment helps companies to build skills for their own workforces, develop empowered enterprises and suppliers, and tap into opportunities for socio-economic development. Its approach includes incubation of industry-specific small and medium enterprises to train unemployed youth according to the requirements of its corporate clients.
This model enables Diversity Empowerment to connect corporations with unemployed youth, previously disadvantaged people, youth living with disability, and other groups to help them develop their skills, embark on careers within the company’s organisation, and join the mainstream economy. Diversity Empowerment also facilitates relationships between companies seeking empowerment partners and social enterprises and black-owned small businesses.
Says Athabile Jojo, CEO of Diversity Empowerment: “Although the goods of good practice provide a valuable starting point for empowerment, it is time to look at ways we can help organisations to harness the full opportunities of transforming their businesses. Our goal is to help clients build on their existing transformation efforts in a manner that drives higher bottom-line impact, while also accelerating the positive impact of their efforts for their intended beneficiaries.
“Transformation and diversity are critical success factors in South Africa today, and our clients are sincere about living up to these imperatives. Yet businesses do not necessarily have the time, expertise or resources to implement sustainable transformation plans effectively. Through our years of experience, we are able to provide our clients with solutions across all pillars of the B-BBEE Codes, while creating significant economic opportunities for all in our ecosystem.”
A new model for transformation
