Thabo Jama and his organisation Black 888 is at it again … this time focusing on the education of the youth.

Working with Simunye, a non-profit organisation in Westonaria, they have pledged to send more than 70 people for training.

“I managed to raise R50 000 for this new project,” he said. With this money, he will be sponsoring people from Tarlton, Magaliesburg, Orient Hills, Braamvlei, Kagiso and Munsieville to develop skills that might help them find a job. The courses available are computer skills, painting and plastering, as well as make-up and nails.

The duration of each course is four weeks, and at the end participants will receive a certificate.

We want to focus on the 2020 matriculants, and we will be helping 25 learners in each course.”

The first course will start on 8 February.

“I hope and pray this will help them get jobs,” he said.

One of the people who will benefit from this opportunity is 27-year-old Violet Maneke. She said she has been out of school since 2012 and did not study anything else.

This is a great opportunity for me; I am greatly privileged and overwhelmed,” she said.

Violet will take the computer skills course and explained that as she is not currently working, she hopes this will help her in the future. She dreams of studying office admin and hopes this extra course will help to realise that dream.

Thabo said his next venture would be to help 15 people to get their learner’s and driver’s licences, but after discussing it with the department he realised this would have to wait. With Covid-19 and lockdown it is difficult to do this now, and he will wait for the department to give the go-ahead.

Not all the spaces for these three courses have been filled yet, and if you are interested please call Thabo on 074 539 4249.