Umathathi training project is going out of its way to make sure that the unemployed youth of Grahamstown give back to their communities while learning new skills in a ground-breaking project that looks at all aspects of their lives.
Umathathi training project is going out of its way to make sure that the unemployed youth of Grahamstown give back to their communities while learning new skills in a ground-breaking project that looks at all aspects of their lives.
Umthathi does this through a programme called Healthy Living, which basically trains the community to live a healthy life and includes gardening and cooking skills.
The current group of 18 young people is called Private Eye. Lakhanya Tata, Umthathi community development facilitator, told Grocott’s Mail on Thursday 23 October that they have two training sessions where they teach hygiene and nutrition for healthy living.
“We give the youth something to do through home-based care where they will have to identify homes where they can lend a helping hand,” Tata said. Tata added that the groups they train are also required to do gardening and ensure there is something to eat in the homes they have agreed to help.
“Today we issued a letter of attendance to students who have completed training of a week,” she added. Umthathi is monitoring all the groups they have trained in the past few months, including Private Eye which was under the watchful eye of Ndumiso Nkonki.
Nkonki told Grocott’s Mail that the participants have learnt valuable skills about planting and cooking in the week they spent at Umthathi.
“This is just the beginning of more training to come, because I feel like we still have a long way to go in actually saying this is an art we have perfected,” Nkonki said.
The Private Eye group is comprised of unemployed youth, some of whom have dropped out of school or can't afford to go on to tertiary level.
“We hope to open a rehabilitation centre by next January to help our young people get out of drugs,” Nkonki said.
The groups are also taught how to make a monthly budget as many of them confessed to wasting their money on unnecessary things that leave them broke come month end.
The private sector is also playing a part in uplifting the community, with Pennypinchers and Buco to name a few, lending a helping hand.
