Volkswagen empowers disabled learners

From left, Shangri-la Community Development Project Director Amor Malan, Volkswagen of SA Dealer Academy Manager Helen Hemsley, and End-User Computing Learnership participant Nokuthula Mthembu.

Volkswagen of SA Dealer Academy Manager Helen Hemsley explained: “The White Paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy (1997) states that ‘…an estimated 99% of disabled people are excluded from employment on the open labour market…' as their physical access to both services and opportunities pose vast problems.

“To help address this challenge, we, through our Midrand-based Dealer Academy, have launched the End-User Computing learnership.”

Set up with funding from a R26-million Merseta grant awarded to the company last year, the learnership forms part of the company's People for the Future project, a commitment to invest in a broad range of internal and external skills development initiatives between 2006 and 2010.

The End-User Computing learnership, structured around a National Certificate in Information Technology - End-User Computing (NQF Level 3 and SAQA accredited), consists of four months of classroom tuition covering fundamental, core and elective studies, and an eight-month practical workplace component.

The programme kicked off in January and is managed by the Shangri-la Community Development Project.

From tragedy to triumph

Learnership candidate Nokuthula Mthembu, 23, of Nkandla, in KwaZulu-Natal, has been given a lifeline by her selection to the course.

Paralyzed in an attack that left her mother dead and Nokuthula and her brothers orphaned, the little girl was sent from pillar to post for schooling, at times enduring ill-treatment. She matriculated from the Philadelphia School for the Disabled in Soshanguwe, Pretoria, in 2007, but even after matriculating, her fate appeared to be one of continual hardship. Behind the scenes however, the Volkswagen Dealer Academy had appointed Shangri-la to manage its disability project and one brief was for Gauteng-based learners but the school, as fate would have it, mistakenly included Nokuthula's number.

The rest, as they say, is history…Nokuthula, with the help of some kind Samaritans, was able to join the program and now has the opportunity to learn new skills and hopefully to secure employment for herself next year. A whole new life has started.