**12. Gaining entry and ethical considerations**

We ultimately worked in our project with 67 unemployed youth from this background, as well as 62 from the Nkomazi context. The two communities are not different from one another although they are close to 350 Kilometres apart. They came voluntarily to be part of the project after we send by word-of-mouth an invitation to youth who would be interested to be involved. Most of them had been part of our informal interactions in the local communities of Siyabuswa and Nkomazi, where we would talk about the problems of unemployment, and they would express interest because these were issues high up in their minds. These communities and the youth assisted us at the interpretative phase of the study as in these informal conversations with some of them we became aware of the need to do something about the issues of youth unemployment, at least among the youth in the immediate vicinity of the Siyabuswa and Mbombela Campuses of the University of Mpumalanga.

We had no criteria for inviting and welcoming these youth into our project as we needed every input from the people who experienced the problem directly. Tother we them we constitute the two teams for this research project as guided by the principles of PAR. We had hoped to include other people in the project who would enrich our discussions and efforts towards designing the intended sustainable learning environments that would supposedly promote higher levels of employment and employability through the replication of positively inclusive relational entanglements, as PAR principles would guide. We however focused on the youth only because of the risk of being entangled in political strives in these communities during the unfolding election year. If we went beyond the youth, we could be accused of favouring one political party over others in our recruitment, especially because they (political parties) wanted to use issues of unemployment in their campaigns. This concern thus limited the circles within which we could work in this project.

To formalise our work, we applied to UMP for Ethical Clearance as a condition for our project. This was granted with the number *UMP/Mahlomaholo/CoE-Human Development/2022.* We had promised to abide by all research ethics policies and principles that ensured that our study was respectful, transparent, and did no harm to anybody. On the contrary, our study is transformative, redressive of past inequalities, and guided by the principles for social justice, equity, freedom, peace, and hope. The youth who participated in the study were accorded the same status of full-fledged human beings as us researchers who could contribute in whatever manner to the formulation of the strategy to promote employability of the youth, as hoped for. They were thus not considered as the sample, but as the co-researchers who were involved at the problem identification and formulation phase (the interpretative), as well as at the analytical and educative phases, identified by Patti Lather [39]. As a condition for the granting of the ethical clearance for the study we had promised to do no harm and to include the youth who would volunteer to be involved only. We also had mechanisms in place to ensure that any of them could drop out of the project at any stage of the project without any negative consequence befalling her/him if they so wished. We asked them for permission to work with them and to recorded via video and audio devices all activities of the project where we all got involved. Although they expressed the view that they wanted their real name to be used, we however agreed to use pseudonyms instead. The latter, instead of using numbers and/or letters of the alphabet to refer to them, gave the project and the feeling of authenticity and closeness to real human being as dictated to by both our theoretical framework and the methodological approach. They agreed to sign the informed consent as they all were

#### *Employability as Inclusive Entanglement in Relationalities: A Design in Sustainable Learning… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.114033*

above 18 years of age, and needed no parental guidance on the matter of involvement in the project that held a lot of hope and promise for them and their future. We agreed that while the study in its approaches focuses on them as human beings, there will be no publication of personal data in the manner that would identify them. We also agreed to keep their personal data confidential, even when we published articles, books, and book chapters out of the project.

We invited them to the university's campus in Siyabuswa where the informed consent forms were signed. In Nkomazi we used a hall in the premisses of a school where one of our Masters' students was the principal who allowed us to do so. The venues were chosen to avoid being overwhelmed by electioneering activities in their neighbourhoods. We held our meetings on Thursdays every fort night in Siyabuswa and on Fridays in Nkomasi, to allow for our travelling from one site to the next. There were held from 11 h00 until 14 h00 or even later at times. In the case of the latter, we provided light meals for all.

### **13. Two research teams and credentials of co-researchers**

At each site two teams were created. The first team we referred to as the Steering Committee and the other the General. The Steering Committee consisted of two of us from the university and two youth. The General Committee consisted of the steering Committee members plus every youth and academic who wanted to be involved. The Steering Committee worked with the project and its activities on daily basis while the General Committee met once fortnightly to participate in the entire activities of the project as well as monitor progress made. We had hoped that all youth irrespective of gender, socio-economic status, religion, and any form of disability would be involved. However, there were only Black youth mainly from the poor to working class communities volunteered.

At Siyabuswa there were 7 youth who were graduates as follows: a Diploma in Metallurgical Engineering, a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree, a Bachelor of Science degree, a Diploma in Agriculture in Plant Harvesting, a Diploma in Business Management, and another Diploma in Logistics, as well as a BA Public Management and Governance degree. The rest (60) had a Grade 12 certificate as their highest qualification. There were 54 females and 13 males in the group.

At Nkomazi there were seven Bachelor of Education graduates, three youth with a Diploma in Animal Husbandry, five with Office Management Diploma, Diploma in Farming, National Diploma in Local Government, Certificate in Computer Security, National Diploma in Engineering and Related Design, National Diploma in Civil Engineering, BA degree in Fine Arts, National Certificate in primary Agriculture, 15 who did not complete Grade 12, and 26 with a Grade 12 qualification. There were 59 females and three males. The teams consisted of 5 professors and a senior lecturer in Education, Industrial Psychology, Information and Communication Technology, Agriculture.
