Teaching kids to earn a living
A PROJECT to equip pupils at New Brighton’s Charles Duna Primary School with entrepreneurial skills, may have benefits that stretch far beyond the classroom, and into the community.
“Eighty per cent of my parents here at Charles Duna are unemployed,” principal Nombulelo Sume said.
“We are teaching our pupils not to wait for employment but to create their own employment. We are planting a seed, that even while they are at school, they can create their own businesses.”
Not only is she hoping the skills learned will help them break the cycle of poverty most families face. But she is also hopeful that the entrepreneurial bug might spread from pupil to parent.
The Charles Duna programme – which includes 68 pupils from Grade 1 to 7 – falls under the community outreach wing of the national Young Entrepreneurs (YE) programme, which was introduced in Port Elizabeth earlier this year to equip pupils with the tools to run their own businesses and manage their finances.
YE’s outreach initiative sees private sector sponsors working in partnership with the YE Foundation Trust, to ensure that less fortunate children can also benefit from the formal YE programme, which in Port Elizabeth is being attended by pupils from nine Bay schools.
Sume said: “The children are making products which they are going to sell at a market day – and I’ve told them they must use the money they make to buy more materials to make and sell more products . . . I have told my parents that we want their support with the programme, whether their child is in Grade 1 or 7.
“I’m hoping some parents will team up with their children, to make their own family businesses,” she said.
The pupils’ products range from decorative gift bags to jewellery, stationery holders, bird feeders and picture frames.
Sume said the programme was “taking kids off the streets”.
Putting the final touches to her colourful photo frames, Lolwethu Ludada, 12, said: “I like saving money – and I enjoy working with people.
“I want to be a fashion designer when I’m older.”
“I want to be a doctor,” said Siyolise Mpofu, 10.
“I’ve enjoyed learning how to make bracelets and am looking forward to selling them and making some money.”
The formal YE programme runs for 30 weeks a year (15 weeks Entrepreneurship and 15 weeks Financial Literacy), and caters for Grade 1 to 9 pupils.
“The YE programme offered at Charles Duna, which is also offered in Port Elizabeth and around the country to fee-paying pupils from other schools, has proven to be very successful in developing participants’ entrepreneurial and financial skills,” who owns the Port Elizabeth YE franchise owner Ansulene Prinsloo said.