How Egoli Youth Empowerment turned squash into a pathway to opportunity for Joburg's youth

Egoli Youth Empowerment started with squash courts in Soweto and grew into a holistic youth development programme spanning sport, academic support, life skills, leadership, entrepreneurship and urban farming. Director Glenn Lazarus and Programme Director Sharon Sibanda tell BizNews how EYE is creating safe spaces, developing young talent, and helping vulnerable youth in Soweto and Johannesburg’s inner city build confidence, resilience and opportunity.

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Edited transcript of the interview

Patrick Kidd (00:00)
Egoli Youth Empowerment is a Soweto-based non-profit. Today I’m joined by Director Glenn Lazarus and Programme Director Sharon Sibanda. My first question for you guys: EYE started off as Egoli Squash. How did that evolve into Egoli Youth Empowerment, and what does that timeline look like?

Glenn Lazarus (00:23)
Thanks, Patrick. I think the original plan was that I got a lot of enjoyment out of playing squash and, having been a bit of a serial entrepreneur, I felt that it was time to explore opportunities to give back to the youth of our country.

We decided to start off by having a couple of squash days in Soweto and thought that, based on that, we would see what would happen. Originally, we held a weekend session and put up some signs at some schools in Soweto. We had one squash court that had lights and one squash court that did not have a floor. But, other than that, all was good.

We ran a session over the weekend and had about 300 young kids in Soweto show up. We were expecting about 20 or 30. We were not sure if they showed up because they saw “squash” and thought it was orange squash to drink, or if they came to find out what was new.

We started off and held the first sessions. It was an amazing experience because we had so many people and so few resources. But we got the community involved. We ran outdoor sessions, played a little bit of squash, and ran that for a couple of weeks.

We had planned to run it for three weekends. At the end of the three weekends, we went back home and were doing our regular thing. A friend of mine, who was a co-founder of the organisation, was Dikana Mthombeni, who lived in Soweto. On the fourth week, the kids came knocking at his door, saying: “Hey coach, where are you? What is going on? Why are we not at the courts today?”

Glenn Lazarus (02:07)
That was the beginning, some 12 or 13 years ago, when we started introducing squash. As we ran more programmes, we expanded into the inner city and realised that we were only touching the tip of the iceberg. The youth needed the outcomes in terms of sport, but all the other issues they were facing on a day-to-day basis were not being addressed.

That is when we got Sharon involved. Sharon is a psychologist by trade and has been involved in the programme since the early days. She identified some of the key issues faced in the inner city and Soweto, whether social issues or all the different things that kids face on a day-to-day basis.

As we progressed, we started introducing more and more additional programmes — from life skills to academic support, healthy lifestyle, nutrition, and so on. This evolved over a period of three or four years.

We are now at a stage where, after quite some time, we decided to change the look and feel of our image because it was no longer just about squash. It became about producing opportunities for at-risk youth to gain leadership, become great citizens of our country, and have outcomes that give them the opportunity to be employed and become leaders.

Patrick Kidd (03:42)
And so, who are the kids?

Sharon Sibanda (03:47)
Yes, with squash, we realised that we were using squash as an entry point. But then there were the challenges that inner-city and Soweto kids face in their day-to-day lives. We had to address them if we were to successfully run as a programme.

We are talking about kids whose realities involve waking up in communities that are ridden with poverty, crime, violence, and environments that could easily sway them in the wrong direction. We felt that we had to provide them with a safe space — a safe space where they have caring adults who are nurturing and who can listen to them and say: “We know the realities that you are going through. We are not going to perform a miracle and say we are going to change your realities, but we are going to walk this journey with you.”

We are going to provide you with life skills. We are going to provide you with leadership skills and empower you to be resilient young South African citizens.

Patrick Kidd (05:01)
And how did these kids get involved?

Sharon Sibanda (05:04)
We approach schools in the inner city and Soweto. We approached principals, school sports coordinators and school governing bodies to say: “Here is this sport that we would like to introduce to your schools.”

During the first days, it was really tough when we went out to the schools to try to introduce the sport, because here we were bringing a new sport that the schools themselves had never heard of. They were thinking: What is squash? Is it tennis? Is squash some form of juice? They were thinking all sorts of things.

So, to really take up that sport, we had to do fun and exciting roadshows. That is when they got to see and experience it and say: “We would like to try this sport. We would like our learners to participate.”

But it was not an easy journey, because we had to come up with the strategies and organisation to say: “Yes, we are presenting this sport, but how are we going to go about it?”

We had to set up a structure where we involved the different stakeholders — the sports coordinators, the principals, the parents, and the youth themselves — to say: “This is for you. We cannot design anything without you in it, so you must be involved in the planning, the designing and the structure.”

Patrick Kidd (06:42)
And then, why squash? What are some of the benefits that you have seen from squash being the sporting medium?

Glenn Lazarus (06:50)
I think squash has become a secondary product in the life cycle of what we do today. It was initially the glue and, still is, the entry point where we encourage kids of all ages — from eight right through to our graduates in their 20s — to come and experience something new.

But we have evolved from just being squash to providing netball, street racket and chess. It is all about making sure there is a disciplined approach to a healthy lifestyle, encouraging athlete development, encouraging academic support, building future leadership, and encouraging our participants to influence others.

That is a very big factor in the work that we do. If we can influence one single child, that child can influence the family, and that can have an enormous outcome — especially if we look at the areas where we are involved in entrepreneurial skills and things like urban farming.

Instead of it just being: “Here, come have a drink, play some sport and go home,” when you go home, we have given you some entrepreneurial skills. You can build your own home garden, an urban farm. At our schools in Soweto, we have urban farming that takes place on a regular basis. They are producing produce that can be sold. The excess is taken home and is also utilised in the schools.

So this is a big factor in driving leadership and entrepreneurial skills, so that young people can take this to their families and influence their communities.

Sharon Sibanda (08:52)
Yes. And with sport, the youth get to train, they get to compete, they get to play, they get to win and lose. Those are tangible life skills that the youth need to navigate life.

Those are life skills that are not taught even within schools. With sport, that is possible, where these soft life skills are taught to the youth. They learn how to manage losses, how to manage wins, how to be disciplined, and how to follow a structured programme. With sport, that is what we have managed to achieve.

Patrick Kidd (09:39)
And on the topic of sport, you have a big team of coaches. What is the role that these coaches play?

Glenn Lazarus (09:47)
I think these coaches are not just coaches. These coaches become life influences and mentors in the children’s lives and in the families as well. Sharon can tell you some stories of how we are part of a family. It is not about a coach being outside of the environment. That coach becomes an intrinsic go-to person to deal with any issues they are facing.

They are very, very complicated issues. We have had cases where, unfortunately, parents pass away, or issues such as early childhood pregnancies and children being lost, and all sorts of really difficult situations to handle. That is why Sharon is pivotal. We call her Ma Egoli, the mother of Egoli, because she looks after so many issues and assists the families with their day-to-day lives.

Sharon Sibanda (10:50)
The coaches live within the communities where the players come from, so they are not new to the realities that the players are going through. They are able to identify the socio-economic challenges that the players are going through. They are able to quickly identify when players are going through difficult challenges in their lives, and they are able to assist them to navigate those challenges.

Patrick Kidd (11:26)
In your 2025 report, you mentioned that 15 players from Egoli Youth Empowerment qualified for interprovincials. What are some of the big success stories that you guys have had through the years?

Glenn Lazarus (11:45)
We have had some great, unbelievable experiences. We have had players who have participated in world championships, travelling to Poland, Australia and Botswana. Some of our graduates are coaching all over the world as a result of the experience they gained through the programme.

But I also think we have some local superheroes. We have a young player right now by the name of Savata, who comes out of Soweto. He is ranked number one or two in his age group in the country. The reality is that the family has practically nothing. We support and assist the family as much as we can, but most of the competitors he plays against are elite players who have private coaches with unlimited budgets.

As you know, when we talk about squash, squash is an elitist sport. It is through the work that we do that we have changed it and made it much more available and accessible to players in the inner city and Soweto.

Then we have some of our graduates — coach graduates and graduates who have gone on to become leaders in their own right. We have a guy like Clinton, who started in our Alex programme. He was thrown out of school because they could not afford to pay the fees. We brought him back and got him a bursary to go to a good school.

He graduated and, during school, was selected by the St John’s Academy to participate in the St John’s Academy, which was a huge success. When he matriculated, the St John’s Academy invited him to become an intern teacher at the school and gave him a bursary to study at the University of South Africa. He became a housemaster and, subsequent to that, he has been teaching and is a highly regarded teacher at some really upmarket schools in the Kyalami area.

These are some of the graduates who have done phenomenal things, and we have quite a number of them who graduated through the system over the years. These players always come back because they are part of the family. They become influences right throughout the Egoli family.

Sharon Sibanda (14:36)
And the smiles, you know. The smiles that we see on our children’s faces — I would say that is the biggest achievement that we have made and continue to make as an organisation.

We have children who came into the programme who were shy, withdrawn and lacked confidence. But after two or three months in the programme, they stand tall and are able to smile. They become bubbly, and that is the joy that we want to see as an organisation.

Our work has also been recognised by organisations such as the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, the Sport for Social Change Network and Squash South Africa, just to name a few. It goes to show the positive impact that we are trying to achieve each and every day.

Patrick Kidd (15:41)
How can people, and members of the BizNews tribe, help?

Glenn Lazarus (15:48)
I think South Africa faces one or two fundamental issues. We have a lot of youth unemployment. It is not for lack of talent. There is so much talent. There really is.

We find talent every day, whether it is sporting talent or future leaders. We identify talent across our youth. Our programme requires, for those participants who become part of our high-performance programme, that they complete their academic records. We track them and follow their progress, and make sure we get their report cards.

We ensure that we have academic support programmes in the afternoons. They have to attend them. They have to achieve minimum standards in order to continue in the programme, so that we give them guidance. They then participate in entrepreneurial skills. So that creates a more holistic approach.

What we see is that we want to build a stable economy, but we need to empower our youth to participate in that economy. So what we need from the BizNews tribe is the opportunity for sustainability and food security, but through initiatives where the BizNews tribe can influence, assist and mentor.

Whether that means coming down and participating, sharing, or coming to give a talk on success and giving the kids and participants goals to achieve, it is about empowerment. We are all about empowerment, and we need the BizNews tribe to assist us in that empowerment, building resilience and sustainability.

It is not all about money. It is about influencing society.

Glenn Lazarus (17:44)
So we would love the BizNews tribe to come down, get involved and participate by mentoring or sharing ideas. Financial contributions would also be amazing.

But, at the end of the day, we have a board of influential people. We have a board of trustees, some of them from big economic organisations, and some who are just passionate about youth empowerment. The key is: how can we involve the BizNews tribe in assisting our youth to grow and become future entrepreneurs?

Patrick Kidd (18:25)
And just to close off, what does success look like for Egoli Youth Empowerment in 2026 and beyond?

Glenn Lazarus (18:34)
Well, we have a dream. Our head office is based in the Ellis Park Athletic Stadium. In the Ellis Park Stadium and the sports precinct, we have quite a number of kids — in the hundreds — who come down to our facilities at UJ, which is one of our main centres, and at the Gazankulu Squash Centre at Gazankulu School in Soweto, on a Wednesday and a Thursday.

Success is about utilising the sports precinct and bringing hundreds of kids into the sports precinct, giving them the opportunity to participate in a healthy lifestyle, academic involvement and nurturing, and giving them the opportunity to grow through entrepreneurial skills, both in the inner city and in Soweto.

We want to build more infrastructure capable of not only playing sport, but also providing academic support in the inner city and in Soweto. About five or six years ago, we built one additional squash court at Gazankulu School. We also built a resource centre at the back. We would love to do the same in the sports precinct in Johannesburg.

Patrick Kidd (19:53)
Glenn Lazarus is Director and Sharon Sibanda is Programme Director at Egoli Youth Empowerment. I’m Patrick Kidd for BizNews.com.