Career and Social assistance for the community by the community

By Sonja van der Vyver - Development Practitioner

Interventions such as Life Skills and vocational skills training and programmes such as the Women’s sewing and Craft Project which aims to increase the income generating opportunities for disadvantaged people need to be supported by sustainable structures and skills from within the community for the benefits of a project to continue after the development facilitators have disengaged from the community.

It is for this reason that Village Power is training several members of the community committee as vocational and career counselors, social support agents and HIV/Aids peer educators.

Lettie Sekobane is one of the community members who have volunteered to become a career guidance assistant. Lettie’s dream is to become a social worker and she is enthusiastic about the training which she receives from both Social worker, Sam Savage and Development Practitioner, Sonja van der Vyver.

Lettie is available to anybody in the community who wishes to increase their employability and assists people with the compilation of CV’s, goal setting and motivation. Lettie also visits vulnerable individuals in the community and encourages them to engage more actively in the decision making process regarding aspects of their own lives. What follows are verbatim exerpts out of Lettie’s reports on the people whom she assists:

Brother Ndundu

Note by Development Practitioner: Ndundu is a middle aged man who has been tending several rose bushes for years even when Masakhane had no water. He approached me a few months ago and asked me to bring him some black planting bags as he wanted to propogate his roses and other plants for sale

Lettie’s Report: Brother Ndundu has started growing roses and other plants a while ago. I went to him to see how he was doing. He told me that everything was going well. He has started planting and he is waiting for some of the seedlings to come up and grow. If they grow he will plant some more. He said that he needs some more black planting bags for all the seedlings and plants which he is planting.

Sister Mapula (not her real name)

Note by development practitioner: Mapula is a women in her early 30’s, alcoholic, jobless, single mother to two children. She lost a baby of two years old to HIV/Aids related illness a year ago.

Lettie’s Report: She said that she would love to bake some cakes (cookies) for the crèche children and that helping small children will be such a good thing to do in life. She said she is happy to see that there are people who really care about her and said we must visit her often.

Lettie’s report on Ndundu bears testimony to the fact that the people of this settlement are beginning to become empowered and engaging in enterprise development while her interaction with Mapula has clearly helped to prevent this young women from feeling alienated from her surrounding community. Lettie is truly commited to serving her community and her work continues. She will be attending a 3-month counseling course presented by Social worker, Sam Savage. This will enhance Lettie's natural aptitude for working with the people in ehr community.

The Women's project

The Women's Project at Masakhane Aims to transfer and increase skills and to provide the women of this settlement with possible income generating skills.

With the help of Su West from Village Power a number of women have been taking part in this programme. First of all everybody got the opportunity to learn basic hand sewing skills. wITH funds donated by ABI, Su bought 2 hand sewing machines and proceeeded to teach basic sewing skills. Mattresses and blankets, which will be used by thE creche children were completed and handed over to the creche.

With the help of the group's leader, Maria Selebogo, several women learnt how to crochet. For 5 weeks everybody crocheted simple blocks, which were used to create beautiful waistcoats and Handbags. These items will be for sale at a local gift shop called FairyNuff owned by Lauren Robers.

Su West will be developing the bussiness skills alongside their craft skills, teaching the women on this project basic bussiness skills such as costing, marketing and money management, using the expenses and sales of their products as practical examples. in this way the skills which the women will have acquired as part of this project coul be used by them to become self-employed and self-sustainable.