Basic IT skills for the disadvantaged
NGO empowers the homeless
Skills training helps to break the cycle of poverty
If they are to stand a chance of bettering themselves, disadvantaged people need to have basic information technology (IT) skills, a Durban-based community worker says.
Homeless people around KZN’s major city now have the opportunity to improve their lives and their chances of becoming independent, after completing a computer training course offered by the Sakhisizwe Community Project. The NGO’s work is supported by eThekwini metro and the provincial government.
The number of homeless people who finished the basic computer training exceeds 50.
Sakhisizwe founder Vumani Gwala is grateful of the partnership with KZN’s department of social development and eThekwini municipality on various social upliftment programmes.
Gwala hopes that the beneficiaries of Sakhisizwe’s latest project will stand a better chance of finding work or even start small businesses.
“The homeless and vulnerable members of society need to be provided with skills to break out of the cycle of poverty they fin d themselves in.
“Working with the homeless shelters eThekwini uses to house [homeless] people during the coronavirus [lockdown], we were able to order computers and encouraged the homeless to sign up,” Gwala explains.
Sakhisizwe focuses on technology skills because Gwala and his team believe this is the way to prepare disadvantaged people for the digital world.
“This could very well be the new normal,” says Gwala.
“Organisations at community level are the ones that can have a direct impact, sometimes more than government departments, simply because they are led by the community itself. If organisations can make IT the basic resource for any community, along with the soup kitchens that are so needed, we can plant the seeds they need for the future.”