Asset management company, Sygnia, has made a founding grant to Routes to Resilience, to deliver the ground-breaking Sygnature Award Programme to the first group of 55 Grade 11 learners in the Western Cape.
Building upon lessons from last year’s Routes to Resilience Adventurous Journey at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, also sponsored by Sygnia, the Sygnature Award seeks to help youth become “future fit” by providing knowledge, skills and practice-based experiential learning opportunities that increase the understanding of the principles of sustainability, the impacts of global environmental change and the opportunities it presents to access new forms of work and drive positive change.
The Award programme was developed by the Impact Trust in collaboration with Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership South Africa and global thought leaders in sustainability and systems thinking. Each of the three programmes making up the Award is designed to inspire, inform and ignite tomorrow’s leaders, offering a unique learning experience in sustainability leadership that couples knowledge and skills development with experiential learning and the opportunity to apply and practice skills through the design and implementation of service action projects in their communities.
Central to the Sygnature Award Programme is the understanding that youth will not only be the most affected by the challenge of sustainable development, but that they will also be pivotal to its potential success. It is they who will drive global resource use trends, direct future consumption patterns and lead future political systems change. Through successful achievement of the Sygnature Award, Routes to Resilience is enabling tomorrow’s leaders develop their intrinsic capacity to imagine, explore and take action for a sustainable future.
The 2019 Sygnature group of 55 Grade 11 learners are also participating in the Go for Gold programme in the Western Cape. Go for Gold is an award-winning ‘education-to-employment’ public-private initiative supporting youth committed to engaging in the construction industry. Understanding how the built environment can work with, and even mimic nature to promote sustainable development in urban settlements is a key part of their learning.
“We are very excited to be leading this programme expansion with the Impact Trust and most especially with this first cohort of young and upcoming leaders in construction who are preparing to work to really build the future.” said Simon Peile, Executive Director of Sygnia Asset Management. “We believe that the inclusion of critical sustainability intelligence and practical application in the education and development of young people at secondary and tertiary level has a significant role to play in enhancing education and preparing young people to be future-fit and able to face the challenges that a Fourth Industrial Revolution will bring!”.
