Annual Report 2005

Annual Report 2005 ‘We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men And among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes And they come back to us as effects’. (Herman Melville)

Variety adds spice …

2005 has been the year of many new beginnings at BSDC: a new one-year full time course, a new Open Source, wireless connected Resource Centre and Computer Centre, Siyaya-phambili Call Centre training, a new part-time course, school learners being mentored into a new entrepreneurship venture, a BSDC website and a new manager. It has been a year of trial and error, awash with ideas, and we can proudly say, we made it!!

We have trained 68 students during our fulltime course this year, as opposed to 100 students trained the previous years. Despite this, a number of additional activities that have taken place at BSDC make up for the loss of numbers on the full-time course:

• BSDC has had three Siyaya-Phambili Call Centre Training courses – with 14 students in the first, and 15 students in the 2nd and 3rd courses.
• Approximately 2000 Grade 10 and 11 learners at 10 township schools were given a careers workshop and an introduction into preparing business plans for small business ventures. Many were submitted for our Young Entrepreneurs competition.
• During the July holiday the 12 winners of our Young Entrepreneurs competition attended a course which focused on life skills training as well as computer skills and entrepreneurship. This group have started a small business named Khanyisa Young Entrepreneurs selling vegetables and fruit to their community.
• We also held a 6 months part-time course, largely for senior school teachers from the more ‘disadvantaged’ areas, from which 9 students graduated. The rest will complete the course in 2006.
• In all, 143 have received training from BSDC in 2005.

The new ropes..

This, our first year of running a one year full-time course has been divided into: A. The Bridging course of 7 months duration with the following subjects:

1. Entrepreneurship 2. IT/Typing 3. Bookkeeping 4. Office Practice 5. Business Communication 6. Business Drama B. The Electives of 3 months where each student selected a specialist area from:

1. IT – where they did the ICDL (International Computer Drivers’ Licence) on Open Source – with great success. 2. Call centre training – a dynamic, high growth area with increasing employment prospects. Already (9th January) 18 out of the 21 elective trainees are placed. 3. Entrepreneurship – where Marlene Wolhuter, our entrepreneurship and bookkeeping facilitator increased the depth and application of the small businesses these candidates began during the bridging course. 4. Reception/Secretarial – where Lisa and Linda focused on communication and confidence and the application of these in the workplace, while continuing with intensive IT and office practice skills. C. Workshadow for 1 month:

This forms the pivotal area of the entire year. The students have the opportunity to test their skills, be given thorough feedback and gain experience for use once they have graduated. For our young entrepreneurs, this time in the small and medium sized businesses where they were placed, showed them the necessity of being versatile and willing to put their hand to anything!

The learners traditionally get really nervous before leaving for workshadow and this year was no exception. It is always significant though, that they return from workshadow with a strong feeling of confidence at having survived their first hurdle – the work environment! The call centre and IT learners were received with rave reviews, and many employed permanently or on contract after workshadow. The Reception/Secretarial students were also received positively, (‘the best student we’ve ever had, she fitted in so well’… Impact Incentives). On their return, the learners were given intensives in specific areas which a couple of the participating organizations identified as ‘requiring attention’.

Making it work.. The legendary commitment and caring of the BSDC teaching staff has never been in question, but has been sorely tested this year. And whilst we strongly support much of it, the new education system has required that we not only revisit every aspect of our curriculum, but that each detail is examined from diverse angles. Unit standards are then laboriously located, lessons are prepared ala ‘outcomes’ with the learners of course receiving plans for every move they make during the year upfront. Assessments and moderations follow hard on these by now exhausted heels, and the teachers, should they find time, are also required to …teach! So, having now become all legal, accredited, registered, and happy, we live with the new horror that many of the unit standards that are now accredited may be terminated or change over the next few years, requiring the whole process to start again! So, the 200% increase in paper-work for our teachers doing the spadework and Celiwe, fine-tuning and co-ordinating the process, would be a really conservative estimate of the impact of the new course in tandem with the new education system. Worth it? The learners think so…

So far… and then much further! In the recruitment and placement division, we have had a wonderful team that has worked at full tilt this year. They made 68 placements this year, which included 62 of the 94 students from 2004.

In addition, to their recruitment activities, YAC recruit, test, select and track the BSDC full and part-time students, the call centre students and the school entrepreneurs. YAC interviews approximately 3 potential learners for every one accepted. During 2005 they ran an interview skills programme for the students, a careers workshops for grade 10’s and 11’s at the township schools, and have been pivotal in putting together marketing material, arranging functions, co-ordinating orientation, graduation and the strategic planning. As if that weren’t enough, they personally counsel, mentor and provide nurturing assistance to all the lost souls who wander in off the street needing help with job-hunting or registering with BSDC, PLUS, giving useful assistance to the entrepreneurs and small businesses with whom BSDC has contact.

Alongside YAC, we have had the unswerving support of TSO – The Support Office, a Recruitment organization that has provided both ongoing training for YAC staff, as well as placed the BSDC students from the one year course and Siyaya Phambili. Their success rate is phenomenal with 18 of the 20 call centre elective students placed within a month of them graduating! ……IT students, …. Reception students are placed, whilst the of the entrepreneurship group …. Are still running their own successful businesses.

Destination anywhere… Part of the vision for the revitalization of BSDC from a funder perspective, has been to restore drooping relationships, explore new ones and cement those that are working. In this, we have been delightedly offered the opportunity to visit Johannesburg on 3 occasions for this purpose by Impact Incentives. Apart from enjoying being there and meeting a variety of ‘voices’, our purpose has been thoroughly fulfilled, and resulted in strong relationships and a move towards making BSDC self-sustainable by setting up a Call Centre during 2006. amaVulindlela

As you will remember from the 2005 BSDC profile, we plan to make a few more changes during 2006. Over the years, there have been many occasions where youths with Grade 10 or 11 approach BSDC to join our course. Even as we sadly turn them away in order to accommodate our established target market matriculants, we are acutely aware of the enormous need that lies within this forgotten group of ‘lost learners’. In a recent article in the Weekend Argus in Cape Town, it was stated that of all the learners (according to the 2005 figures – 80 000) who begin Grade 1 at the start of a year, only half would matriculate. According to a ‘whip-round’ survey of a few schools in the Cape Province in August 2005, the following disturbing statistics were provided:

• At Manenberg High, the drop-out rate from Grade 9 to Grade 12 was 84%!!!!!!! – this is clearly a worst case scenario in an area notorious for gangsterism and prevalence of drugs.
• I.D. Mkhize, Gugulethu – the drop-out rate from Grade 8 to 12 is 44%
• Matthew Goniwe in Khayelitsha, the drop-out rate from Grade 8 to Grade 12 is 59%

There is little quantifiable information regarding the whereabouts and activities of these learners, nor their reasons for leaving school early. We do not know why they drop out, but we do know they need help if only to keep them off the streets and away from despair, drugs and possibly crime.

Vulindlela Details:

In addition to Qhubela Phambili which will accommodate 60 matriculants in 2006, we are initiating the Vulindlela project. We will select 20 individuals with Grade 10 or 11 who have dropped out of school and are over 16 years old. They will be provided with intensive life skills training, entrepreneurship, IT and numeracy during their first year. Their curriculum will consist of:

• 2 week orientation
• intensive life skills training
• IT, numeracy and entrepreneurship (NQF 1)
• They will start their own small businesses after 4 months on the course to help them survive, or they will be provided with casual jobs over weekends.
• 5 weeks of workshadow or spending that time at their casual jobs or small businesses

After one year they will progress onto the formal course currently studied by matriculants at BSDC.

Mentorship will be a key component of the curriculum from 2006, with ex-students being trained and providing mentoring for the community of learners at BSDC. Computers and other animals…

Our learners continue to enjoy working on our user-friendly, pioneering, Open Source system where they are trained on concept rather than package driven principles. They are able to transfer between Open Source and Microsoft easily and happily in true outcomes based education fashion!

Apart from a heavy reduction in our telephone bill, the wireless connectivity has offered the teachers a vital research and communication tool. Each student was allocated an individual ‘BSDC email account’ and once they were internet and email literate these were extensively used for research, presentation of information, assignments, projects etc. The teachers were able to set , mark and provide feedback electronically… good for Portfolios of evidence!

Our website is up and going, and we are hoping that the learners will present stories, comments and information on the site during 2006 as part of their curriculum.

The International Computer Drivers’ Licence (ICDL), was successfully run for the first time this year by Wendi Wise our IT Manager. Our 11 IT elective students did us proud in their efforts towards this well-recognised qualification, and are being rewarded by being offered good, solid IT jobs.

We are also proposing to set up a call centre to offer an outsourced call centre service for companies requiring it. The profits will be used to provide funds for BSDC. Due to the pioneering nature of this project and our intention to use Open Source, IBM have offered to partner with us and are donating state-of-the-art call centre equipment to BSDC. We are putting out proposals to funders to assist with the balance of the set-up costs and initial operating costs.

How to win friends…

Call centres: During 2004, we formed a partnership with Melanie Bailes of Insight Call centre, an NGO doing call centre training at Athlone School of the Blind for Blind, partially sighted and previously disadvantaged individuals. Melanie trained our call centre elective - September to October 2005, and the 5 weeks of call centre skills which forms part of our 12 week call centre offering to corporates.

Open Source: The IT community has been enthusiastic about our installation of an open source-training laboratory and resource centre. We have been encouraged by The Shuttleworth Foundation, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Sun Micro Systems, QED technologies

Swiss Contact: This organisation has offered vouchers to our entrepreneurs for ongoing training in business skills once their BSDC course is complete.

Black Management Forum: Some of our directors, as well as Celiwe Ngwenya and Zikhona Mantanga attend their meetings.

Network Breakfasts: Zikhona and Xoliswa Myo attend small business breakfasts at Menngos for information sharing and networking. Cathy Clarke and Celiwe Ngwenya attend network breakfasts once a month at the waterfront where we have been asked to do a presentation on BSDC.

Recruitment agencies: We are closely linked to ‘The Support Office’, the Recruitment arm of the Andisa Group. They assist us with presentations to our learners on the job market, interview skills and CV preparation as well as utilising our ex-students for placements.

Ithaca Consulting: This organisation offered our staff, directors and stakeholders, EQ training as a donation in 2004. During 2005, they once again, sponsored and facilitated EQ training for the learners during orientation and once a month for the year.

Business Survival Solutions: This organisation, linked to Umsibomvu, have provided us with a network of individuals who are interested in assisting our learner entrepreneurs with finance and continuing training. They have furthermore assisted BSDC with our small project budgeting and planning.

Funders – 2004/5

Business Skills & Development Centre List of Funders 2003/5