#YouthMonth: Some are old, some are new, some are business, some are youth

Ivory Park Grade 1 teachers

During Youth Month, I chatted to Marcelle Ravid, marketing and communications manager for ORT SA, about the organisation, whose mission is to empower people through education, skills and enterprise development, thereby contributing to the upliftment of all South Africans.

Tell us about ORT SA and how it all started?

ORT SA is an award winning non-profit organisation and has trained and empowered thousands of South Africans in business development, cutting-edge teacher training, skills development, work readiness programmes and basic computer literacy. ORT SA is affiliated to World ORT which was established 135 years ago in Russia and operates in over 40 countries around the world.

ORT SA is accredited with the Services SETA for the New Venture Creation Qualification and is a Cisco Training Academy, and strives to make people employable and create employment opportunities.

What programs do you offer, and how do they tie in with the normal school curriculum?

ORT SA consists of three academies: ORT SA IT Academy; ORT SA Skills and Enterprise Development Acadamy; and the ORT SA STEM Academy (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths).

ORT SA STEM Academy:
ORT SA argues that effective teaching in the 21st century requires high-quality professional learning and development for teachers to be responsive to the changing, complex, and challenging demands of teaching. ORT SA designed and implemented the BIDVEST/ORT SA Maths/ICT project in Alexandra, Johannesburg since 2007, with the aim to support the teachers to gain the required skills and knowledge. Ultimately more learners will pass matric with an entrance to Higher Education institutes.

The professional development of the teachers is delivered in the form of training workshops and classroom-based support. A facilitator was appointed to conduct the training workshops, give classroom-based support and mentor the teachers.

The Second Chance Programme teaches matric maths and science to past matrics in order to improve their marks for tertiary acceptance. ORT SA had a 95% pass rate in 2016 with many students being accepted at universities.

We also offer "Whole School Development" – training for principals, school governing bodies etc. - which is SACE accredited.

ORT SA IT Academy:
The IT Bridging course offers training to unemployed youth - the training consists of MS Office, Cisco IT Essentials and basic coding. End User computer training (MS Office) is also available.

The Academy offers Robotics to 9-11 year olds as an extra curricula activity.

We also run Coding Clubs in Ivory Park primary and high schools as extra curricula and soon to start in Soweto at the new ‘school of specialisation'.

ORT SA Skills and ED Academy:
The Skills and Enterprise Development Acadamy offers Accredited SETA New Venture Creation for small business training; business mentoring for small business by captains of industry; Business Entrepreneurial Training for small business; and Business Sharing Forums for small businesses.

Share with us some of your success stories...

Success Myambo is one of our ORT SA Heroes. She was the top learner in the ORT SA Second Chance Programme of 2016, having improved her Maths mark from 46% in 2015 to 71%, and her Physical Science mark from 53% to 71%, after participating in the programme. She is going to be studying a BSc in the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment at Wits University.

Our other Heroes can be viewed here: www.ortsa.org.za/ortsaheroes/

What’s at the top of your wish list for ORT SA?

Consistent funding so that ORT SA can do more to educate and train South Africans to make them employable and create employment opportunities.

Where do you see ORT SA in five years?

As a household name in the non-profit sphere of education and training with the capacity to double our impact.

Anyone interested in learning more about ORT SA and its programmes, can get in touch with the organisation on +27 (0)11 728 7154 or email az.gro.astro@ofni. Any donations made to the organisation are used to cover costs of training for unemployed youth and previously disadvantaged South Africans. Companies interested in partnering with ORT SA can view the BBBEE scorecard benefits here.