Upskilling the youth through Portable Skills Training

The Portable Skills Training Programme was very successful.

June 9, 2021

Witbank News 1 minute read

The carpentry graduates from Glencore Coal Portable Skills Training.

Providing the communities with skills that will better their lives is something Glencore Coal deem vitally important.

In January 2021, they initiated a highly successful Portable Skills Training Programme. The programme took place over six months and involved training in welding, carpentry and computer skills.

“We conduct audits to determine which skills need developing to fill the gaps in our communities. If you’ve got a skill, you can do something to help yourself in the future,” said Sibusiso Mbebe, community development specialist at iMpunzi.

Local training company Circle Way Training was providing the training and through an application process, 15 community members were selected to participate in each of the three portable skills courses that would grant them practical, transferable skills.

Bulelwa Nozibele, who formed part of the carpentry team on the programme, described the initiative as an “opportunity for me to start my own business or be able to apply with the certificate should opportunities be presenting themselves. At least now I’ve achieved something, what I could not do, I can now do”.

Mzikayise Mkhasibe is equally stimulated by his newly acquired skill in welding.

He feels privileged and motivated, he stated, “My focus is to find a job where I can utilise my new skill so I can be able to contribute to my child’s upbringing and uplift my family.”

Circle Way Training was established in 2011 with a strategic goal to bring quality education to small towns in Mpumalanga.

“We’ve been working with Glencore since 2016 to empower the youth around their communities with relevant skills that will make them self-sustainable. People who have never held a welding stick leave here being able to make products out of steel, people who have never worked with wood and now being able to make cupboards,” said Fanuel Chesa, principal at Circle Way Training.

Participants who complete the Portable Skills Programme successfully receive a certificate indicating the skill acquired.

The 2021 second intake of the Portable Skills Programme will be open for applications soon.

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