I have been a bit scarce on this blog,
because we have been really busy. What are we up to? Here’s a short summary on
some current and future projects that we are working on:
World of Work Programme
This is a programme that we are running in
secondary schools in South
Africa. This year, we rolled out this
programme to 2,800 schools, reaching nearly one million learners. The programme
is sponsored by Standard Bank, and is aimed at improving the level of personal
financial education in secondary schools, and providing learners with life
skills and confidence that they need to enter the world of work.
This year saw a massive rollout to all nine
provinces. We held training sessions with more than 10,800 educators in all
nine provinces. This work took place from March until now. We are almost
finished, and will start monitoring the results as they flood in.
Project Enterprise
This is a new programme that we are
developing. We envisage a post-school programme – ‘Project Enterprise’ - that helps
school-leavers to develop enterprising skills and attitudes, and empowers them
to become economically active, whether in their own businesses, or those of
others.
We are ideally placed to develop, and
operate such a Programme because of the successes already achieved in secondary
education, because we are active in the rural areas, and because of the deep
relationships which we have developed with the educational authorities.
We are currently developing a detailed
specification, and are preparing a concept proposal. We are canvassing support for the ‘Project Enterprise’ Programme, and we are actively
seeking public and private sector sponsorships and funding to get the Programme
off the ground. This programme shows real promise, and we believe it has an
international reach.
Achiever Programme
The Achiever programme is in its first
stage of development. In stage 1, we will gather contact information on all of
the secondary schools in South
Africa. In stage 2, we will identify those
learners about to enter the workplace, that demonstrate an aptitude and desire
to enter the financial services industry. In stage 3, we will assist these
entrants to obtain the necessary skills needed to work in the sector, and in
stage 4, we will work with the financial services sector to place these
entrants into appropriate positions in industry. We are focuing on financial services at present, but we may seek to expand into other industries in due course.
In stage 1, this year, we have developed a
comprehensive database containing information on all 3,000 of the secondary
schools that we have worked with. This database contains comprehensive contact
information for all secondary schools. We believe that we have the most
comprehensive and up-to-date contact data available. We use the information
contained in this database to communicate effectively with the schools via sms,
bulk fax, and email. It allows us to reach our target base very quickly and efficiently.
In stage 2, which kicks off in September,
we will be identifying suitable candidates, and building a learner contact
database. We envisage that we will have a database of 1,000’s of aspiring young
school-leavers eager to join the financial services industry in 2011.
If you have an interest in any of these projects. Let me know.
