Cell C's youth work – from Take a Child to Work to its new partnership with Canva – is built on a simple bet: young South Africans aren't short of talent. They're short of access. So, Cell C is closing that gap, one tool at a time.
If you're young and creating in South Africa right now, you already know the hard part isn't the idea. You've got ideas. The design in your head, the business you keep sketching in your note’s app, the CV you know could look sharper if you just had the right software. What's missing is rarely ambition. It's the way through.
The numbers back that up, and they're brutal: youth unemployment now sits at 45,8%, the highest Statistics South Africa has ever recorded. But a stat like that doesn't capture the quieter cost – all the talent that never gets a room to walk into, a tool to work with, or a door held open at the right moment.
That's the gap Cell C has decided to be useful about. Not with a motivational speech, but by showing up where it counts.
You'll have seen it first through See Youth, the platform that anchors Cell C's Take a Child to Work programme. The point isn't to tell you what's possible – it's to put you inside a real workplace, next to real careers, so you can see how it actually works. Less talk at you from the outside. More standing with you on the inside.
The newest chapter is a partnership with Canva, the global design platform. If See Youth opens the door, Canva puts a tool in your hand for what's on the other side of it: professional-grade design and content software that turns an idea into a CV that gets read, a portfolio that gets noticed, or the first post for a business that's still just a dream. And here's the entry point – buy the Cell C 5GB Anytime Data Bundle (14 days, R69) and you get three months of Canva Pro at no extra cost. Small move, real one. A start, not the whole story.
There's more coming: Cell C and Canva are planning youth activations across the country, with Cell C playing the part it keeps coming back to – an enabler of creativity and hustle in the communities it serves. Presence over promotion. Tools over talk.
"See Youth taught us something important – young people don't need another brand telling them what's possible. They need a brand that removes a barrier standing in their way," says Melanie Forbes, chief marketing officer at Cell C. "Take a Child to Work opened doors into workplaces. Canva puts professional tools straight into your hands. Same commitment, said differently – and we're only getting started."
For a generation facing the toughest job market the country has ever recorded, talk is cheap and access isn't. Cell C's bet – through See Youth, Take a Child to Work and now Canva – is simple: showing up in your everyday life, consistently, will always beat a one-off campaign moment. So, consider the door held open. The rest is yours to make.
