Education South Africa Project #51399

Make College Possible for African Students

by Infinite Family

Project Report | Sep 20, 2021
Getting Global Jobs Starts with Global Skills

By Amy Conrad Stokes | Founder, President and CEO

Alfred N. Building Global Skills

Infinite Family’s teens distinguish themselves in many ways, the first of which is by going against widespread norms in their communities and staying in school through 12^th grade. Then they have the audacity to aspire to continue on to college. Imagine how frustrating it is, after working so hard and beating the odds only to have this pathway to a better future shut down later on. Maybe funds saved for college had to be spent to feed the family during the pandemic. Maybe there are younger siblings or an ailing elder to care for. It could be any one of a hundred reasons that block a student’s ability to go away for an advanced education.

Your support this year is eliminating many of these barriers to getting a good job. We thought it would take until early 2022 to get started, but with your help, the first 50 of our Net Blazers are starting now via the Global Skills Initiative South Africa. Working with other NGOs to create access to Microsoft’s digital skills building programme, Infinite Famiy has created the infrastructure for our alums to return to the LaunchPads to take intensive, online courses in ten (10) different areas including: Customer Service Specialist, Data Analyst , Digital Marketer, Financial Analyst, Graphic Designer, IT Administrator , IT Support/Help Desk Technician, Project Manager, Sales Representative, and Software Developer.

Thanks to you, as long as they finish what they start, ranging from six (6) to 35 hours, the courses are free and deliver distinguished digital certifications. LinkedIn has created a hiring portal that facilitates searching for talent based on these certifications, making it easier and faster for companies to find qualified people. By the end of November, many of our Net Blazers will be qualified, more competitive and easier to identify with several new skills sets each! Alfred N. above, studying in our Alexandra LaunchPad, was one of the first to sign up and is now getting a jump on the competition. Our privacy booths make it even easier to work without worrying about Covid-19 precautions.

Your ongoing commitment to our teens inspires them to continue to work towards the good jobs that exist outside of their communities. Learning to invest in themselves with new skills helps them build resilience and adaptability for the always evolving global workplace.

Especially during these terribly difficult times, our students have needed to know they weren’t alone in their fight for a better future. You answered our call and keep them advancing. Thank you!

Permalink

May 24, 2021
Stability is a Strong Place to Start

By Amy Conrad Stokes | Founder, President & CEO

Zinzo Tebe in our Khayelitsha LaunchPad

Stability is what any new program needs and what Infinite Family will build on to begin bringing online education to the townships. How do we know we have a stable foundation for these new services for South Africa’s teens? Well, his name is Zinzo Tebe and Zinzo means “Stability” in IsiXhosa, his first language. We are pleased to introduce Zinzo today as the newest team member to join Infinite Family. He lives with his brother and two “big husky dogs” on the outskirts of Cape Town, in Khayelitsha, just a short walk from our LaunchPad.

We knew that Zinzo was the man for this job when he showed us a graphic that he had already studied in detail. The graphic he shared was a description of the South African school system and all the ways a teenager can navigate her/his/their journey from student to career. (You may see this confusing system in the photo above.) Challenges don’t intimidate Zinzo, especially those that bring new opportunities to South African children. In fact, Zinzo has been working with technology to deliver educational resources to students since 2014. He is a proven problem solver and quick to learn whatever he needs to get the job done, which we know he will need to climb the many learning curves that these new technologies bring.

We are also excited because Zinzo is an excellent role model for the teens and young adults who he will work with. In addition to knowing the local schools well, the personal values that matter most to him are discipline, punctuality, honesty and trust. These are powerful characteristics for our Net Buddies to see in action on a daily basis! Getting to know Zinzo has also expanded Infinite Family’s staff vocabulary. We now know that ophidiophobic means having an incredible fear of snakes and that this is the most widely reported fear, affecting approximately one third of all adults. We confirmed this ourselves during a recent staff meeting: we can’t easily say it, but several of us are definitely ophidiophobic!

Zinzo starts his day every morning at 5am and is a big fan of coffee, audio books and classic rock, gospel and New Age instrumental music. He is excited to join Infinite Family to bring new resources and opportunities to local young adults striving to build more secure and stable lives. While I don’t always start quite as early as Zinzo does, I do wake up each day deeply grateful to you, our generous donors and GlobalGiving, for making it possible to expand our team and take on these important new challenges in our South African communities. Thank you.

Links:

Infinite Family's website

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.