Monday, 11 May 2009 13:09

HP has been finding out from three NGOs in Africa what progress they have made with GET-IT training within their organisations. The NGOs are quite different, but they are all focused on providing effective education for students and unemployed young people.
 
The first of our three interviews is with Mzwabantu Ntlangeni of Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF). UYF is a development financing institution that operates from 14 offices throughout South Africa. In the new financial year (from 1 April 2009), the Fund is planning to roll out additional branches which will take the number of operational branches to beyond 20. The headquarters are based in Johannesburg and HP provided UYF with a grant for GET-IT training facilities in Pretoria and Cape Town in 2008. UYF aims to implement at least 20 GET-IT courses throughout this year.
Mzwabantu Ntlangeni is Director, International Relations & Partnerships and this is what he had to say:

Q: Can you please give a brief explanation of the services you provide and the community and area where you are based?   
MN: At UYF, we support young people aged 18-35. For women, however, there are no age restrictions. We provide three main services:
The first is an information support programme. We provide young people with information so that they can navigate and make choices either about their education or future careers. We have walk-in centres which enable people to request information on their education or even on how to start their own business.

We have mobile vehicles for people who cannot make the journey to our own offices. All of our vehicles are equipped with IT equipment with laptops which gives access to the internet. So, when we go into rural areas, we can offer people the chance to surf the net or prepare their CVs online and make connections with prospective employers.

Our second service is a skills development and training programme. The aim of this is to provide young and underemployed people with skills that will provide them with a livelihood to go into business or be employed. We can provide them with IT skills (which is where our relationship with HP is so important) and technical skills, such as skills for construction. Sometimes our clients are not able to further their education for various reasons, and so they opt for practical skills training.

Our third service is a youth entrepreneurship programme. This programme is aimed at young people who have left school and are unemployed. At present, self employment is considered to be a viable option - jobs are shrinking even more so with the current global economic crisis. So we provide training for two groups of people: potential entrepreneurs and students still in school. By the time the students have left school, they are very aware that self employment is possible.

We also have an effective business development support programme where young people are linked with specialist providers so that they can be assisted with services. Young people, who may have an idea for starting up a new business, can be linked up with specialists who can put together a business plan or develop an existing one. The Fund also provides loan financing to viable youth and women-owned businesses.

Whilst offering these programmes, we have discovered that a large number of young people are unemployable because they don’t have basic skills for jobs. For example, many graduates cannot apply for jobs because they have never used a computer in their lives. Our relationship with HP and the GET-IT training programme helps us to bridge this gap between leaving school and the world of the work.

In 2008, we supported 495,000 young people with information support programmes. We reached 44,270 people with our entrepreneurship training and we provided 55,680 young people with skills training in various disciplines.

Q: How many students have you registered (past or present) to use GET-IT in your centre and what type of educational or employment background do they have?
MN: The GET-IT training facilities in Cape Town are still relatively new and we are still making final preparations. However, in Pretoria we have 70 students who have completed training and we have 182 students waiting to start.

About 81% of the current population are young people leaving high school and many of these will not progress to further education. About 5% of those remaining are in business already and want to acquire more skills and the majority of those are women.

Q: How much has the provision of GET-IT in your centre helped to create awareness of the need for greater knowledge of IT and business in your area? What are the benefits?
MN: The provision of GET-IT training has helped a great deal - because more than 85% of the South African population do not have or have limited access to IT in their homes or communities. So many people are unemployed and any possible employment is hindered by their lack of IT skills. Many people are literally stuck where they are and do not even have a CV to give to potential employers. Consequently, they need better IT skills and, because we can offer HP’s GET-IT training, word has spread quickly and far and wide.

As an example, our office in Pretoria is opposite a college of further education. We have lots of people walking in and out of our centre, using our facilities. These are college students and, because they can come in easily, they are happy to talk about the training. We have back-to-back training session on a daily basis.

Q: Have you incorporated HP’s GET-IT City technology into your training capabilities? Do you think this is a good approach? What do you think could be added or deleted? What feedback have you received from your students who have used it?
MN: Based on the feedback from the young people who’ve used the GET-IT City, this is an incredible facility that allows for training and advice to be accessible beyond the classroom. A next key step for the Fund will be to utilise its existing portal, which is visited frequently by young people, to spread the word about GET-IT City and its value.

Q: What examples can you provide of how GET-IT City has helped the students in you centre with their educational / business training? What examples of best practice within GET-IT City can you highlight and why?

MN: Due to the practical nature of the content of GET-IT City, our trainees have found that they are able to learn at their own pace. This is a critical approach for the effective development of young people.

Q: What examples of success can you provide of how GET-IT has helped the students in your centre to find work or set up a business?
One of our students recently secured a job as a Trainee Trainer and Administrator in a training institute where he was required to have basic knowledge of computer skills and the MS Office package.


Questions for Frans Kgamedi - student still training:

Q1: How long have you been undertaking the GET-IT training and what are your experiences so far?
FK: We have been training for three days and we really appreciate the knowledge that we are being given. We did not have a clue how to use a computer before or what software packages to use. We had heard about MS Word and Excel but we had no knowledge of what they looked like.

Q2: Have you used the GET-IT City technology and, if so, what do you think of it? How useful is it? How much benefit do you think it can provide? Do you think it needs to be changed at all and, if so, in what way?
FK: We have used it - and we found it to be extremely useful. I think this tool will assist us in being able to network with other, like-minded young people.


Questions for Salaminah Ratshidi - student who has completed training

Q1: How effective and useful was the GET-IT training to you and how much has it helped you with setting up your own business or finding work?
SR: It has assisted me in the exposure to the world of computers and in being in a position to be employable. Recently, I got employment to do training and administration for a training company. I will be trained to train others and the knowledge of computers that I gained has really helped.

Q2: Did you use the GET-IT City training technology at all? If so, what did you think of it? How useful is it? How much benefit do you think it can provide? Do you think it needs to be changed at all and, if so, in what way?
SR: Yes, it was a little difficult when we started because I didn’t know how to use a computer. But the trainer took time to explain, and the programme is practical which also helped. It would be good if there could be more computers for more people. It will help in the security company that I have.

Finally, for Mzwabantu Ntlangeni of UYF...
Q: What advice would you offer to any NGOs who have only recently started to offer GET-IT programmes?
MN: Firstly and based on our experience, the GET-IT training must be incorporated into the main course of business. NGOs should find a way of integrating it so that it is not a stand alone programme. Secondly, adequate infrastructure for the programme is also critical. In addition, a dedicated group of trainers and facilitators is absolutely critical to the success of the programme.

Lastly, it is also important to get feedback from trainees on a regular basis. This will ensure that the programme offering adds real value to the lives of trainees.