Twenty years of exposing and attracting young South Africans to the wonders and technology of a career in the defence and aviation sectors – Africa Aerospace and Defence Youth Development Programme (YDP).
When you speak to pilots and career members of the defence force many will tell you that their love of defence and aviation began when they were young, fuelled by a fascination for the machines and the technology that drives them.
The AAD’s YDP, started in 2004, aims to bring back that fascination in the youth and to expose them to the technologies that are represented by the top local and international companies which exhibit at the AAD Expo. It’s also about attracting young people into the SANDF and the general aviation sector through renewed interest in and understanding of the extensive technologies, engineering, research and development behind the equipment used in defence and aviation.
“Our message to the youth is look at the sector and fall in love again with mathematics and science because of the shortage of young people following STEM subjects,” says Kholi Khumalo, chairperson of the AAD YDP.
The programme is activation based around events such as the Swartkops Airshow where, on the Friday, learners are introduced to and interact with the companies which have a presence at the show. “One hundred days before the AAD event we organise industry visits to see engineers in action at production facilities like Milkor where the participants actually witness the designers, artisans and engineers building the products,” says Khumalo.
Using the hashtag #ExlopreYourFuture, the YDP extends into a social media campaign aimed at reaching thousands of youngsters on a monthly basis to showcase the different careers and the professionals behind them plying their trade in the aviation and defence sectors.
Acquisition strategy
Khumalo says there’s a two-strategy approach in attracting the learners to participate in both the activations and the YDP programme during the trade and public days of the AAD Expo.
“The first strategy is to approach the Department of Basic Education in all nine provinces, to identify the top performers in maths and science across all schools and race groups and invite them to take part in the activations,” says Khumalo.
“Our second strategy is to invite schools, aviation clubs, church groups and youth in general society who have an interest in aviation to attend group visits to air force bases and aviation and defence companies.”
Out of the acquisition strategy, the YDP then identifies two groups of learners to participate in the programme.
The first is a prestige STEM group who are the top performing students in maths and science (1,500) and attend the AAD airshow on the trade days – days one, two and three (18-20 September).
The second is a mass participation group who are also good performers in maths and science, but have an inherent interest in defence and aviation (9,000). They attend on the public days of the airshow (21-22 September).
At the show
Khumalo says the prestige group is split 500 per day over the three days, 250 in the morning and 250 in the afternoon. They are escorted by chaperones, who are volunteers from the SANDF, to the company activations at the show, including the career exhibition with more than 20 companies and institutions of higher education and training showcasing their technologies.
There is also a “drone zone” featuring a competition where learners can build and then fly their own drones. “It’s a structure programme, what we call a vocation plan,” says Khumalo.
The mass participation group is free to move across the airshow and interact with the exhibits and static aircraft displays, escorted by their educators.
“Our airshow is a full five senses career exhibition, where you can see and hear the aircraft fly, you can touch the static displays, smell the jet fuel and immerse all your senses. We ask the companies exhibiting not only to bring information in pamphlet format, but to bring actual equipment,” says Khumalo, who emphasises that it’s not a “bag and brochure” affair but an experiential immersion of the technologies at play. For example, he says, a company like Hensoldt will exhibit the sophisticated camera that’s mounted underneath an aircraft and share the workings of the camera with the learners.
Follow through
Khumalo says the objective is to develop an electronic database of the learners who attended AAD and track them from the day they visited the show to the day they enter into employment, closing the loop. “This provides tangible impact on the lives of the learners who come through the programme.”
