Over the years there have been many wonderful graduation ceremonies celebrating young people who have completed the SkillWise digital skills course. Photographic records of some of these can be seen in the individual centres’ pages accessed from this website. However, today we are celebrating a series of firsts at a new centre:
This week the first group of 22 learners graduated having completed their SkillWise training at the Mphoswa – Isibindi centre in Kwa-Zulu Natal. This centre is in Hlabisa, a remote rural area on the Western edge of the Hluhluwe iMfolozi game reserve – more remote and more rural than any of the existing centres. That is a first.
The next first is that this training centre was created as a community project by a commercial organisation – albeit a very special commercial organisation: When Isibindi Africa started to develop its high-end tourist lodges in remote and beautiful corners of Africa, it made a commitment to conservation of the environment and to serving the local community in those areas. it staffed its lodges with local people. Out of this commitment, the Isibindi Foundation was developed, which encourages wealthy international tourists to support Isibindi’s many conservation and community initiatives. Among these, the recent establishing of the Mphoswa – Isibindi training centre was a first. For this, they acquired and renovated an abandoned school, turning it into a delightful learning environment.
This last week, the first group of Mphoswa – Isibindi learners graduated. Like SkillWise learners everywhere, the learners all produced excellent results and most completed the course with averages well above the required 80%. However, and here is another first – for the first time, almost half of the group was made up of school children, aged 16 and up. We are excited and delighted that they managed so well. Until now, we had assumed that this training would be done by young adults eager to find a route into the workplace. These youngsters suggest that there may be another demographic who would also benefit from the SkillWise training. We were also intrigued to discover that the oldest person doing the training was a woman of 66 – giving an age range of fifty years in the class – we suspect that that was also a first!
We congratulate Isibindi, and also their young facilitator Sinethemba, who worked through the course on her own first to equip her to facilitate the group process. Congratulations to Isibindi for their vision, to Sinethemba for her dedication, and to those beautiful and diligent young people, a few of whom smile at us from the photos!
