Combination of vocational training and professional practice
In 2016, our Foundation made a notable contribution to setting up the Sweetdale Skills Center in Margate, South Africa, founded by the couple Roland and Sibylle Wenger. Since then, a good 60 young women and men – primarily disadvantaged young people from the region – have been trained in around 10 different trades at this training and production center each year, enabling them to find a job or even set up their own microenterprise. Also with our support, the Skills Center was supplemented in 2019 with the weighty special project SWEETbike. The aim is to solve a basic problem of mobility in rural South Africa with bicycles and at the same time train young people as bicycle mechanics. The mobility problem is that in these regions there are hardly any bicycles, but also no public transport, but essentially only the shift “on foot” for the poor part of the population. The walk to work or for children to school is often too long or too dangerous, with the result that job opportunities are not taken or children drop out of school. SWEETbike has brought thousands of bikes, some used and repaired, into circulation at schools and built workshops, and has initiated a number of now independent small bike stores. The Skills Center also includes the “Packshed” restaurant, where the trades in question are also taught. The Packshed is now considered one of the best restaurants in the greater region.
The Corona epidemic forced a massive reduction in training activities, but the Skills Centre has survived with great flexibility. In the meantime, the Wenger family of entrepreneurs, together with real estate experts, has planned a very large private retirement resort, “Serenity Hills”, on the same previously unused site where the Skills Center is located, and has started construction work at the beginning of 2023. The grand plan is to give the Skills Centre a sustainable purpose and significant expansion as a combined maintenance and training facility within the resort (www.serenityhills.co.za/skills-center). This combination is in line with the Foundation’s philosophy that our activities should lead to a self-sustaining and therefore more sustainable situation as quickly as possible.