umAfrika Skills Project - the route to short courses

umAfrika Project Specialist

QUOTE: “When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.” – William A Ward.

Umafrika Project Specialists – A Model For Community Outreach Education As A Unique Platform For Advanced, Short Courses, Workshop-Based Training Programme To Complement South Africa’s Critical And Scarce Skills Development And Training Challenges.


WITHIN South Africa’s transforming education terrain, a homegrown education and skills development and training agency, umAfrika Project Specialists, housed in the historic ML Sultan Campus of the Durban University of Technology, is providing short courses for students and school-leavers to get a foothold in a competitive job market.

umAfrika is a community-driven Training Service Provider with innovative workshop programmes.

Founded by Ann Sewlal eight years ago, umAfrika continues to turn unskilled youth around, year in and year out, culminating in the annual graduation ceremony at the DUT’s Hotel School days after the Day of Reconciliation on 16 December.





Sewlal says the ‘the enabling and empowering environment of the campus city’s university’ has provided a niche for umAfrika to deliver basic skills training, learnership training and development for a broader corp of young people from economically marginalised and disadvantaged communities in the Greater Durban Region.

“umAfrika aims to become a model for Community Outreach Education as a unique platform for Advanced, Short Courses, Workshop-Based Training Programme in its quest to complement South Africa’s critical and scarce skills development pipeline and training challenges,” added Sewlal, the agency’s director.

Each year, umAfrika and its dedicated team leaders and service providers deliver turnkey solutions and knowledge economy to upskill and mentor young people for the reality check in the job market and marketplace.

Ahead of umAfrika’s tenth anniversary in 2013, Sewlal says a single historical event, South Africa’s dramatic transformation from an apartheid-based society to a democratic state, had propelled Sewlal to quit the comfort zone of a corporate job to launch a women-empowered skills development and training agency, aimed at upskilling African, Indian, Coloured, Chinese and other minority communities that were marginalied in the apartheid society.

Strategically located within the Abdul Hamed Building at the landmark ML Sultan Campus which provided technical education for disadvantaged communities, umAfrika provides easy access to post-school students, undergraduates and career candidates.

Despite the progress of a democratic country, millions of South Africans are still denied rudimentary services, like piped water, electricity, sanitation and sewerage system. In a post-apartheid environment, school children attend classes in wattle and daub and non-electrified schools, serviced by water tanks and bore holes that dot the rural landscapes: “These depressing conditions, coupled with rampant unemployment and grinding poverty, stymie the education growth and development of our young citizens who we should be nurturing and mentoring as future leaders,” added Sewlal.

However, government continues to redress the socio-economic imbalances and inequities of the old country, promoting a ‘developmental state’ concept of encouraging private-sector capacity to support the public-sector platform of realigning all spheres of social and economic activities in the new nation.

South Africa is still battling with high levels of illiteracy and scarce skills among disadvantaged communities.

umAfrika has identified this deficiency that continues to deny communities of their God-given right to education.

“umAfrika believes it is contributing to the skills shortage pipeline by training and retraining our youth and graduates. We support the culture of education in the formal and informal sectors that has earmarked community involvement as a cornerstone in the areas of teaching, research and skills development and training and applying these theoretical and practical inputs and outputs to the issues that are becoming increasingly relevant to the community at large.

“We believe the emergence of umAfrika has filled a necessary gap in providing subsidized training programmes, including training, examinations and certificates, free of charge.”

umAfrika specialises and focuses in offering streamlined and practical short courses for duration of 3-6 months to a year, in these skill shortage areas:
Computers;
Information Technology;
New Media – internet, emails and social networking;
Entrepreneurship;
Women and Youth in Business;
Black Empowerment Opportunities;
Business Management and Consulting;
Office Administration;
Call Centre Business Networking;
Communications;
Marketing;
Project Management;
Business Law;
Globalisation;
Quality Management;
Production Management;
Human Resources;
HIV and AIDS;

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ABOUT UMAFRIKA

umAfrika’s education and skills development and training programme is based on extensive research in South African and international experiences.

umAfrika’s examinations are co-ordinated and supervised on an ongoing basis, aimed at directly conceptualizing and formulating issues according to the reality check of the possibilities and options available, especially to the disadvantaged, rural and disabled citizens and student population.

umAfrika is guided in its task by:

International and National provisions allocated towards the upliftment of skills development in our country.
Continual research and development undergoing towards what is immediately required for the upliftment of communities.
Integrating of International experience within our local framework, particularly in the development of candidates in accordance to our nations needs.
Design policies and programmes that will assist in developing and accomplishing the Vision and Mission statements of umAfrika.

umAfrika’s success could be attributed to a higher level of grassroots community involvement:

Projects consist of the construction of low-cost housing, schools, libraries, community halls, roads, clinics, IT Training, HIV Training, Leadership and Motivation courses; and viable and future start-up of Call Centres incorporating Help Desk facilities.

In addition, umAfrika focuses on the stimulation of economic development and community empowerment through interventions such as relevant training schemes and focus on Small, Micro and Medium Enterprise (SMME) development and training.

The development of all projects incorporates the need to redress social injustices and promote black economic empowerment.

umAfrika is responsible for providing redevelopment and training. The agency engages strategic partners, like securing funding from the European Union, international education and training donor organisations, local, provincial and central government, and other funding and humanitarian aid agencies, locally and internationally.


umAfrika has developed IT Training and Business Studies programmes and has created a synergy to complement products and services suited to the common skills needed.

Says founding-director AnnSewlal: “Our human capital, our people, is our key strength in developing umAfrika into a local and national model for community outreach education at grassroots level.

“We select and nurture the best to create an awesome base of expertise and talent. Our wide footprint of embedded knowledge based on international accreditation covering all faculties extensively.”

umAfrika appears to be the open-door for candidates requiring training and skills development towards achieving a variety of skills, like a recent weekend workshop for computer training attracted 250 candidates, thereby revealing the ‘desperate need’ by young people to upskill themselves in computers and information technology.

Majority of the candidates hail from the INK cluster (Inanda, Newtown and Kwa-Mashu), a depressed job market pinpointed by Durban’s eThekwini Municipality for major economic development, and the inner-city suburbs, Phoenix, Canelands, Amaoti, Chatsworth, Lamontville, Isipingo, Umlazi and other areas.

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umAfrika’s Core Vision and Mission

To employ and train previously disadvantaged throughout the country and to equip them with a competent level of a skill that will interact both theoretically and practically.
To enhance their chances of entering the working world and living their dreams.
To eliminate poverty, crime, violence by ongoing participation of outlined workshops.
To focus on gender and to ensure that equality is given.
To focus on people with disabilities on how to provide a workable environment, protecting against discrimination and any violation to human rights.
Transform candidates to adapt to the different cultural background of individuals within the workplace.
Promote globalization as it opens up possibilities for the improvement of life for the poor people, and the disabled.
Strategise to transform all faculties and departments both on a local and a corporate level.
To conduct ongoing (SWOT) analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

umAfrika will endeavour to:

Provide essential tools and resources for the upliftment of socio-economic development within our country.
Provide regular workshops and skills development and training to create ongoing participation within the communities.
Provide transparent and accountable projects whereby candidates are able to have ongoing support and infrastructure.
Strive among all cultures to achieve equality, non racialism, gender equality, economic growth, social cohesion, peace and stability to enhance nation building.
To ensure the efficient and effective delivery of all services and the creation of a safe, healthy and comfortable training environment.
Adapt individuals with skills to operate with a multi-skilling approach to maximize benefit to both the company and the individual.
Adopt a strategic, creative and innovative approach to meet new and current challenges.
Be proactive in achieving social objectives and maximize economic development and job creation opportunities.
Contribute to and create co-operative and supportive relationships within the localized communities and businesses.
The unique layout of designing content course material to provide precise, workable turnkey solutions.
Strive for wider acceptance and accreditation of training course and programme locally and globally.


As a fully-fledged Black Economic Empowerment and Women-empowered agency, umAfrika will continue to add value to the formal and informal education by providing and sharing skills and knowledge aimed at achieving service excellence and supporting the critical skills developing sector.
Copyright


This publication has been produced by Marlan Padayachee GreenGold Africa Communications: greengold@mtnloaded.co.za/ marlan.padayachee@gmail.com/ Mobile: 073 625 8247/ 078 076 8121/ Durban 266 2134/ 266 4293.

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