TEACHING THE NEEDY TO 'CATCH FISH'

I am constantly amazed at the number of institutions, people and assistance that is available to the poor - the problem is letting them know that there is assistance out there and secondly the funding, and yet there are many companies who have no idea what to do with their CSI funding.

I am also very pleasantly surprised to see that in this case (as in many of the others) it is not just a question of giving to them to feed their hunger, but it is giving them the skills to be able to work and feed their own hunger.

This however, also brought to mind a story that was told to me by one of my friends and colleagues. Apparently there is this very poor community, that live in a state of extreme poverty on some of the richest and best soil in the country. A team of volunteers went out there to teach them how to plant and grow their own food. Once the volunteers thought that everybody knew what to do and how, they left. About a year later they went back to see the progress of these people.

To their absolute amazement - the whole community were back in the space where they had been before the help arrived. You see they didn't want to do it for themselves. They wanted the 'handouts'. They wanted to stay in poverty. They did not want to do the work and they obviously wanted to remain "victims of the system/God/apartheid (insert the most appropriate here).

On a personal level, I have met many such people. They weep and wail and cry about how unfair life is and how they never catch the breaks - yet when you try and help them, you very quickly come to realize that they don't actually want to be helped - they prefer to continue to weep, wail and cry.

Just like the story of the turtle and the scorpion - I guess 'it's the very nature of the beast!'

Teaching the needy to 'catch fish'
Workplace staff

16 April 2007 at 06h00

At this time of year, it's hard not to spare a thought for those who don't have jobs or a roof over their heads when it's cold and wet. Consider the parents who weren't able to give their children an Easter egg and the people who might not have had a meal on Family Day. Homelessness and unemployment often go hand-in-hand, and a small group of people is being given the opportunity to break this cycle through an initiative to educate them, hopefully improving their chances of finding work.

The adult basic education and training (Abet) programme at the Central Methodist Mission in Small Street Mall is run by Bishop Paul Verryn. It was the brainchild of Tracy of the Lonehill Methodist Church in conjunction with the MD of adult education company Media Works, Jackie Carroll. "I knew that there had to be something that we could do to help the people who live at the mission," says Carroll. "With the funding from the Lonehill Methodist Church, we are able to provide every learner with two meals a day. My company is providing the learning material.

"We sourced and trained the facilitators and, although I embarked on this project in my personal capacity, I'm very proud to say that one of my staff members, Louis Nel, has become extremely involved in this project of his own volition." On any given day, the Central Methodist Mission accommodates between 500 and 700 men, women and children. These are people who have nowhere else to go. According to Richard, the project co-ordinator, "Most of our people are refugees. They are internally and externally displaced. Some of them come from war-torn countries, others are escaping from an oppressive government and then there are those people who are homeless."Most of these people have one thing in common, other than being homeless: they have little, if any, education and this limits the likelihood of their finding work."

The ABET centre has four facilitators, all of whom themselves live at the mission. Media Works identified the four to be trained as facilitators and they play an integral role in teaching the adult learners to read and write. In addition to creating employment for the facilitators, the project has also resulted in two women being employed to prepare food for the learners. Then there is a co-ordinator in charge of IT. In all, seven people are directly employed by the ABET programme.

"The conditions are not very conducive to learning," Carroll says. "People are crammed together, they share bathrooms and don't have any private study space. But despite this, our learners manage to study and some of them also go out to work, when they can find it. We have 65 active learners who are doing face-to-face literacy training. Not only will this help them learn to read and write, it will also improve their English skills, making it easier for them to find work."

"There are two enormous challenges here: we feed our learners two meals a day as we know it is virtually impossible to learn if you are hungry. The second challenge is attendance. Whenever the people can find work, naturally they take it as many of them have families to feed. "So we have learners who leave, and then return. This is particularly challenging when you are doing face-to-face training, because it is difficult to teach a group where everyone is at different levels."

In addition to the adult literacy programme, the mission also offers its residents access to a daycare facility, which enables mothers to go out and look for work knowing their children are cared for; a sewing project and a clinic. "The intention is also to make numeracy training available to the residents of the Central Methodist Mission, but this is dependent on funding as we only have enough funds to allow us to feed our learners for the next six months," concludes Carroll. " If we stop feeding the learners, then they will be forced to go and look for work without completing their qualifications, which will be a huge shame."