Our October blog envisaged supporting one of our trainees through further training, but thanks to AMI (African Musical Instruments) two will be starting work there in January. They will be learning on the job how to make marimbas and other musical instruments. Khanya will continue to support them financially during this period. They will be subject to the same regulations as regular employees and will receive the same holidays in terms of sick pay and holidays. Here you can see where Zim and Sibu will be working and below a foretaste of what they will be making.
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Last month (September) our first three trainees completed their training with The Woodshed. Our pilot project is now finished and we have to ask who has learnt the most? Well, we at Khanya have learnt a lot about curriculum development, finding and managing trainers, how to finance this kind of project for starters. What of the trainees? We never envisaged them emerging as fully fledged carpenters at the end of ten months, that would be unrealistic. However, we hoped to give them basic knowledge and skills on which to build themselves a career or at any rate find employment. Given the different circumstances and health of the three we are pleased that two of them in our view have benefitted from what was on offer. We have decided to support one of them through further training, and the other two will be given tools and support to find work. As well as keeping an eye on these young men, we are now working in partnership with The Grahamstown Project on a sewing skills workshop, more of this in our next blog.
We had hopes of a training project involving another local construction business, but the pandemic has put a stop to that, for the next six months or more at any rate. However, we continue to maintain our links with friends and supporters in Grahamstown/Makhanda and welcome suggestion as to how we can be involved with skills training. Hurrah! We are so excited to announce that you can now easily donate to Khanya by doing what comes naturally...shopping! Just log on to smile.amazon.uk or use the app, nominate Khanya as your chosen charity and let Amazon do the rest. Spread the word!
When you shop @AmazonSmile, Amazon will make a donation to Khanya. ,It's a funny old time of year - in South Africa it's winter, the sun is low in the sky and the temperatures can be pretty low, too. In the UK, at time of writing, it is raining and windy. So here's a photo to brighten things up a bit, courtesy, as ever of the Grahamstown Project (TGP). Here we see two young entrepreneurs rummaging among the shweshwe prints in Jacksons store in Grahamstown/Makhanda. With the help of TGP these young men will be helped to grow their tailoring business. Anyone not familiar with shweshwe, a traditional range of prints, can see just how gorgeous they are. What you can't see or feel is the thickness of the cotton and the distinctive smell of the starch which was used to preserve the material on long sea voyages. ... and at homeWell, not a lot to impart. We wait for the final report from our pilot project and are working to find new projects to support. Despite the gloomy financial situation in Africa and the uncertainties in the UK, we are determined to find people to whom we can offer useful vocational training and partners to help us realise this vision.
Our trustees meet in September and we will be holding our first AGM – details of this will appear on the home page of this website soon. Cross Street in unusually hot and humid conditions in January this year. Now it's July and the streets are just as empty and the annual Grahamstown festival has been cancelled. The pilot project
There is a month to go, lockdown restrictions permitting, until our learners finish their training. It’s not an auspicious time to be trying to sell new-found skills, especially in South Africa. We plan to support them as best we can and will keep you updated on our progress. We referred to this training as ‘the pilot project’ because we knew we would have to be superhuman to get it right first time. And yes, we, too, have been learning constantly. Whether it’s curriculum, management, requirements of trainers, costs, support – you name it, and there’s been a learning point. Looking ahead Meanwhile we held a trustees meeting earlier in July and one theme of our deliberations was ‘What next?’. Pre-Covid we had plans and possibilities, at the moment it’s difficult to know where and what to do next. Thanks to the lockdown and its resulting massive blow to the economy of South Africa, we don’t see a largish project being possible until at least the middle of next year. But the enforced pause, at least, will give us a chance to take stock, analyse and decide how to move forward when it is possible to do so. Over April and May 2021 we hope that Ade will be able to visit schemes in Zambia and Lesotho who are doing similar things to us but are more established. He hopes to gain an insight to what's successful and what doesn't work so well. Searching for new partners We’ve asked our partners in South Africa to identify companies in the Eastern Cape that rely on skilled people who may be interested in some sort of apprentice scheme. Khanya would pay the apprentice’s stipend for say a year and in return the company would teach the skills required. The hope being that after a year some or all would have developed enough that the company would consider taking them on. Carry on carrying on All this is by way of saying that we are trying to look ahead and find a way forward in an uncertain and changing world. A big thank you to all who are interested in our work and who support us in different ways. And a thank you to Graeme Holmes of the Grahamstown Project whose Facebook page we shamelessly plunder for pictures.
In the middle of March our chairman, Ade, was paying a flying visit to South Africa. He went to Amasango Career School on what turned out to be the last day that the school was open, so was unable to catch up on what’s new at the skills workshop there. Ade was, however, able to catch up with our pilot project training three young men in basic woodworking skills. There have been some changes of personnel and ways of working, a new tutor is now providing a more structured way of learning and involving the trainees with practical projects more. The management board is now meeting with trainees briefly once a week and this is proving useful in giving them a chance to talk about any problems and to comment on what is going well. It’s great to be able to show two great examples of progress. Otherwise, Ade met prospective partners to talk about new projects and to build on links and friendships already established. But that was then … Now, six weeks or so later, the school and our training project are in lockdown and all activity has ceased. We can’t discuss new projects remotely because in the South Africa the picture is as unclear as it is in the UK at the time of writing. We did decide that it was important to support our trainees and so are paying them a stipend for three months, which we will review in the light of the situation in South Africa in due course. Let’s hope it’s not too long before Khanya will be able to post some more positive news. It's so good to see our three learners hard at work, two of them proudly sporting their new work clothes in (Khanya) green and grey.
Reports are that they are applying themselves and working hard to acquire skills for life. Of course, there are hiccups but the direction of travel is good. Working up a curriculum One of the things we asked our partner, The Grahamstown Project, to do was to work with our training provider, Rowan Engelbrecht to develop a curriculum. There was nothing off-the-peg that we could use or adapt. So working from textbooks, and with input from people who know about such things, we have developed a bespoke curriculum. We will know at the end of the project in July how viable, modest or ambitious this programme is, and, of course, we hope to have got it just right. Helping young people to gain skills involves more than the teaching, it means having the right recruitment procedures in place, monitoring both trainees and trainees, ensuring health and safety, mentoring and supporting in a variety of ways. Above all training has to mean teaching something relevant and useful, and we hope our work to date will enable this. It also means that in future projects we can work on curricula in other trades more effectively. Graeme Holmes of The Grahamstown Project and Ade Lusmore of Khanya signed an agreement in Grahamstown at the beginning of November The agreement has so far enabled three candidates to be identified, recruited, and trained in work skills in carpentry and woodworking. The trainees receive an allowance and protective clothing and they will be responsible for their own food and transport. This is a pilot project which will help us work out if sponsoring apprentices is a viable way to achieve our objective of building skills for life for disadvantaged young people. Car guards earn a few rand per hour helping shoppers find parking places on the high street and making sure they aren't broken into. Who made it happen?A big thank you to Jane Bradshaw who connected the dots and brought everyone together. The three candidates have now started training with Rowan Engelbrecht of The Woodshed. They are Bongani Gqola, Zimasile Tyupu, and Sibosisu and were all previously members of the much maligned Makhanda Car Guard Club. Sibusiso was viciously attacked by a mob of thieves shortly before the pilot started and he sustained eight stab wounds. Talita Jacobs and Jane visited him at Settlers Hospital and the initial prognosis was that he’d be out in no time.
In addition to Rowan and Jane the local team comprises Talita Jacobs (Human Capital Development Specialist) and Cheryl Fischer (Project Management, Governance and Reporting) as well as Graeme Holmes. The training incorporates theoretical and on-the-job work experience, both hard and soft skills. It will be a platform for the young men to build work and career opportunities: crucially important in a small city with 75% unemployment. Aside from the hard-skills, it is the team’s objective that the young men develop and gain an understanding of a professional approach to working. This is just the beginning and we have plans for similar schemes next year. If you are a new charity you need to have a registration number when you open a bank account but you can't be registered if you don't have a bank account. No bank account, no charity number Our first thought was to go to the high street banks and explain – after all, we reasoned, we aren’t the first people to try to open a bank account for charitable purposes, it can’t be that difficult. Or can it? The big guns HSBC, NatWest, Barclays etc didn’t want to know – we didn’t fit into their ‘community’ or ‘not-for-profit’ profiles. Previous experience with other charities and trusts showed us that these banks do have charity accounts, and have made making life difficult for account holders into an art form. We applied to CAF Bank but they wanted a registration number. We thought we had a glimmer of light with Metro bank. A phone call was made, a form submitted and an appointment made. Two of us turned up at the appointed hour and were interviewed by a pleasant young man. The whole thing went pear-shaped when he asked us where our income would come from. We said quite truthfully ‘donations’. Sorry, was his response but you are a charity and you can’t have a bank account. A different angle Various suggestions were made to us such as ‘open an account then change the account’s name’ – but this can lead to an account being frozen, not something we were prepared to risk. Another, which came from several sources was to set up a company limited by guarantee with the same name and open an account for that. Finally we went to the Small Charities Coalition – such a helpful website. We set up a company so we could submit our application to Unity Trust Bank as recommended by the them. The lack of Charity Commission registration was not a problem, but we needed a business plan. The next hurdle Half and hour’s trawling on the web reading about business plans, and one downloaded template later and we were in business. The plan was written and reviewed and then submitted. Bingo – we had a bank account. Finally it was back to the chicken (or was that egg?) of the Charity Commission application for registration. The application was finished and submitted and after considerably longer than the advertised 40 working days, we got our registration. |
AuthorChristina Thomas is a trustee of Khanya and serial volunteer at Amasango Career School. Archives
January 2024
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