Afrika Tikkun gives hope to young professionals
MIDRAND – Ethnic hair and beauty trainer urges salons and massage parlours to hire professionals.
Photo: Ofentse Ditlopo
A non-profit organisation helps empower youths by providing them with skills to become beauticians.
Shaun Unterslak, a provider of ethnic hair and beauty training to Afrika Tikkun, a well-known non-profit organisation, wants hair salons to hire young professionals.
Unterslak invited the Midrand Reporter to meet up with one of their alumni and her employer at the Mid Isle Spa in Glen Austin, on 3 October, to find out more about their journey together in the world of beauty and to encourage other salon owners to take in young professionals.
Morane Shika from Diepsloot was part of the career development programme with Unterslak and Afrika Tikkun, which focuses on providing sustainable skills and opportunities to their beneficiaries.
” I started working at the Mid Isle Spa in 2014 and I have since been working in the beauty and therapy industry and my experience has been good so far. Since my schooldays I have always wanted to be a physiotherapist specialising in sports, so I came to Johannesburg in 2011 and enrolled for a skills programme to become a professional masseuse.
“After that, I left and went back home to Limpopo, but because I wanted to continue and do more I came back and studied beauty as well as hair and makeup for two years.”
Shika said that she has been working at the spa for five years now. “I started part-time, now that I work full time the experience has been fun, I enjoy it.”
Unterslak encourages salon owners to take young graduates and employ them. Ida van Staden shared her thoughts about the professionals Unterslak and Afrika Tikkun produced. “She is a very good therapist.
“I remember she phoned and told me she can do massages, and as per procedure, I had to let her come for an interview and test her. She was very good and I could see she knew her work from the first treatment she did and her personality is also great.
“While working for me she told me she is going for an extra course to do nails and hair and would still love to work for with me, which I had no problem with, as long as we can do the nails at the spa too.”
Van Staden said that after Shika finished her course she took over a storeroom and she and Shika went and bought hair and manicure equipment, so they could add more services to what they already had.
“We took a place which we used as a storeroom or for the workers and turned it into a nail and hair salon because she wanted to do nails.”
Unterslak added that he was blown away at how the spa owner invested in a new business on the basis of Morane’s skills. “This is exactly what South Africa needs to overcome the huge youth unemployment issue.
“There are a number of qualified graduates available for employment. Any salons looking for staff can contact the project coordinator Shaun Unterslak on 072 517 8937.”
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