Little coherent understanding exists about the realities that shape young people’s lives, how they change over time or differ from one community to another. This lack of understanding severely constrains the ability of policies and interventions to address the challenges facing youth and optimally support them in their attempts to forge positive and transformative pathways.

The Youth Explorer was developed to begin to fill these gaps in our understanding. Drawing on census data, it provides a range of information on young people aged 15-24*, in one easily accessible place. Indicators on young people’s education, economic opportunities, family and living environment, health and more are available at a range of geographic levels, from electoral wards to local municipalities and district municipalities**. The tool provides simple data visualisations and allows for further interactive exploration of the data.

The metadata document with details on the indicators can be downloaded here.

The Youth Explorer was developed by UCT’s Poverty and Inequality Initiative, in partnership with OpenUp (formerly Code for South Africa), Statistics South Africa and the Economies of Regions Learning Network (ERLN). The 2016 pilot version in the Western Cape was supported by the Western Cape Government, City of Cape Town and the Centre of Excellence in Human Development. Additional work on the national portal has been supported by grants provided by the Centre of Excellence in Human Development and the DG Murray Trust. The Youth Explorer was built on Wazimap, which is based on the amazing Census Reporter and is entirely open source.