The second SABMiller Life Skills Course is currently under way at Masakhane. This Life Skills Course is being presented by social worker Sam Savage. Some of the Modules which will be presented are: Stress and Change Management, Motivation, Money Management, Starting your own bussiness, Getting a job etc. Eighteen members of the community ranging from teenagers to mature adults are attending this course. Village Power has had a very good completion rate with the previous Life Skills course with 13 out of 14 participants completing.
Upon completion of the course, participants will receive career guidance which will halp them to identify specific vocational skills training needs. Funding is then available from SABMiller to send participants for vocational skills training. The focus of this training is to identify Skills which will ahve an immediate effect on the income generating ability of participants.
The Life Skills Class of 2009 identified obtaining their driver's licences and basic computer skills as the skills which they perceived as essential to income genrating. It is especially important to note that the traditional perception of development where subsistance skills such as growing vegetables and farming were viewed as essential does not apply to the younger generation and to a community which however rural its setting might be, lies close to the metropolis of Gauteng. In a globalising world development practitioners and agencies should aim to bridge the technology divide through addressing the needs of young people to become part of the current technologically driven economy.
