Rinchi
TechInAfrica – Vodocam has recently made an announcement that there will be around 367 unemployed youths get their certified diplomas from the Vodacom Youth Academy in March and April this year.
The Youth Academy was established in 2012 and funded by the Vodacom Foundation, aiming at providing ICT skills for local youths who have financial problem to get higher-level education. They learn there for free and are prepared to be ICT entrepreneurs in the future once they graduate.
The Youth Academy is facilitated with IT equipment and training centers that enable them to learn high-end computer skills. The upcoming graduation of these 367 youths will add the number of graduates of this program to 1,333.
Takalani Netshitenzhe, Chief Officer, Corporate Affairs for Vodacom Group stated: “Corporates such as Vodacom do not exist in a vacuum. We exist in societies with high levels of inequality and abject poverty and therefore it is incumbent upon us to partner the public sector and non-government organization and come up with innovative solutions to assist government to deal with some of the socio-economic problems, plaguing our society.”
Netshitenzhe continued, “As a purpose-led organisation that seeks to transform society through the use of ICT, this initiative forms part of the organisation’s commitment to help contribute towards the creation of skills development and job creation opportunities by exposing the youth, who would not ordinarily have had access to such skills, with training in order to help close the skills gap within the country’s ICT sector.
We are well aware that the training is not a silver bullet for the unemployment challenge, but it provides youth with a solid foundation upon which to build both their academic future and help increase their chances of getting employment because they have skills that required by the digital economy and knowledge society.”
In the Youth Academy’s program, they learned one of four categories, such as end-user computing (NQF level 3), mobile phone and device repair management (NQF level 3), IT Technical Support (NQF level 4), and Networking Support (NQF level 5). Their duties are to provide IT technical and data capturing support to schools and municipalities in their area.
