Skills for Life
Equal opportunity is something that we believe in and want to see in every country round the world. But how do we help it happen in a country like South Africa where there is such a wide gap in the quality of education on offer?
Although South Africa has enjoyed a stable democracy for 14 years there is a huge economic divide and the majority, who are poor, only have access to poor quality education. Oasis South Africa is trying to address this issue by assisting bright young people from very poor backgrounds.
In 2007 we supported 40 school leavers into 3rd level education.
Building on the success of this work Oasis south Africa has launched Skills for Life, a 12 month “Gap Year’’ programme offering a wide variety of training in skills that will help these disadvantaged young adults onto an equal footing with their peers.
We started the programme with a camp for 40 school leavers. A team from a church in Sheffield, UK, came and spent 4 days with the young people working on their self-esteem, exploring what it means to be unique and have God-given potential. All of the learning was action based and involved creativity, swimming, basketball and great fun!
As Skills for Life has grown we have added courses on self-confidence and self- awareness, ICT training, English language lessons, careers guidance, time management, communications skills, to name just a few. Participants also get part-time jobs to help them financially and to learn how to manage money, do voluntary work one day a week and get a personal mentor to help them learn to make independent decisions.
After 6 months training the school leavers are then supported by Oasis for further 6 months as they step into the next stage of their lives.
All in all it is a busy time for everyone in South Africa, but it’s worth it to see insecure, unhappy young people leave the course as confident, independent young adults who have the opportunity to improve their skills and enter the world of work or study to life themselves out of the crippling poverty that their families have known until now.