Green Riders, a last-mile delivery company, aims to create over 50,000 jobs for unemployed youth
Taylor Pitcher from Manenberg, Cape Town was left with no choice but to leave school as a grade 10 learner to find work to help support her mother and younger sibling. Today, the 19-year-old is one of over two thousand people who have seized the opportunity to work as a Green Rider.
To date, the company has done about one-million deliveries of goods and food in the last-mile delivery industry.
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Pitcher says she searched for a job for months before a relative introduced her to the Green Riders. She applied and underwent three-month training in Athlone. "I was one of the stronger riders during training, so I was given a bike with the first group in April," she says.
Green Riders, piloted in 2023, recruits unemployed young men and women from poor communities, and trains them to become professional delivery riders. The e-bikes they use are significantly cheaper to run than petrol engine motorbikes which not only saves riders thousands of rands each year but also helps to reduce the carbon footprint associated with delivery vehicles.
Pitcher delivers for Uber Eats mostly in Claremont and Rondebosch. The riders work on commission and pay a rental fee of about R900 per week.
"I'm the only one working in the house. My mom is unemployed. So in a week where I see I won't make as much, I choose to sometimes work as late as 10pm or 11pm," she says.
The flexibility of being able to determine her own work hours and exploring as she bikes around the city are the main reasons Pitcher says she enjoys her job. To keep safe when riding home late at night, Pitcher says she communicates with and waits for other Green Riders who also live in Manenberg so they can leave and return together. But the job is not without its dangers; in May she was robbed at gunpoint.
Undaunted for now, she is eager to continue the work as she is supporting her family. "I would encourage other young people to join an initiative like this because the job is exciting and you see so many places and things while riding," she says.
