Boitumelo Ketlhpile is a South African youth who benefited from a SAMED member participating in the Youth Employment Service (YES) initiative.

Boitumelo Ketlhapile worked with the Aurum institute as a lay counsellor gaining valuable interpersonal skills on how to manage HIV and TB patients in a healthcare facility. Boitumelo is passionate about personal development and personal improvement always challenging herself and those around her to continue to develop themselves.

Boitumelo heard from a friend about the YES4Youth program and immediately decided to grasp at the opportunity to work with Youth Health Africa.

As a lay counsellor, Boitumelo prides herself in the skills she gained such as professionalism, the ability to work in a team and maintaining a strong work ethic in a challenging work environment. Some highlights from Boitumelo’s experience were the recognition and acknowledgement she received after meeting her targets especially as she had not gotten formal qualifications in a health-related field.

“During one of the quarterly awards held by Aurum, my supervisor asked me to stand up and shared with the audience that I am a hard-worker who always produces outstanding work, and this made me extremely proud.” Boitumelo sees a future in which she can play a part in transforming society to work with people from different backgrounds with utmost respect as this is important working in healthcare. “I would tell other young people never to give up, being turned down doesn’t mean the end of the work, keep pushing and something will come up.”

We encourage other medtech suppliers to sign up for the YES initiative for an even greater impact on youth unemployment.