Gillian Aron (28) has been working as a carer at Andante Retirement Village in Kuils River for the last three years and the thing she enjoys most about her job, says the Eerste River resident, is when she sees a smile on a patient’s face as she walks through the door in the morning. “Just
Lynn de Vries has walked a long, winding road to get the job she has always wanted. However, had it not been for that road, she may not have been ready for the position of chef at Ride In Café in Jonkershoek, Stellenbosch, when the opportunity finally presented itself. “I finished matric at Stellenzicht High
Bergzicht Training, a skill development NGO in Stellenbosch, recently celebrated all it has achieved in nearly three decades of empowering unemployed, unskilled and semi-skilled individuals with market-related skills. The organisation was established in 1992 and celebrates its 27thanniversary this year. The founder of Bergzicht Training, Ms Cecile Kotzé, as well as one of the first
In 2015, Devon Valley resident Chrisline Thomas, signed up for an iPOWER Self-Empowering Foundation Programme at Bergzicht Training with the aim of completing the Child Care (previously called Edu Care) Programme of the organisation. She had always dreamt of making a contribution to the education of preschoolers, but had instead followed another dream after school
It may have taken her more than a decade, but Bergzicht Training alumnus, Nadia Andries (34), has finally found her calling and it happens to be a job that has helped her start her own business too. Before Nadia completed Bergzicht Training’s Edu Care Programme, she had been employed as a sales assistant at Shoprite,
The day that Nathalie Skippers (photo) signed up for a degree in social work, she may have inadvertently found her calling, but she had no idea then that a career spent helping others to empower themselves would fulfill her that much. “I come from Prieska in the Northern Cape. Social work was not even on
In 2015, Bergzicht Training alumnus and then unemployed Janet Damane opened her door to a complete stranger, an elderly, frail man who had been dropped on her doorstep and abandoned by his children. What she didn’t know at the time, was that this act of selflessness, while she herself was struggling, would help her find
Thanks to a generous donation from the German political research foundation, the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Bergzicht Training was recently able to produce a short video on how donors and volunteers, along with the Bergzicht team, are making an impact on impoverished communities by training poor, unemployed, unskilled or semi-skilled individuals from those communities.
In 2011, the then 29-year old Lungisa Dangisa left Umtata, a small town in the Eastern Cape, and travelled to the Western Cape in search of a job and a brighter future. However, upon arriving in Stellenbosch, he soon discovered that finding a job was not that easy. “While there are jobs in the
As Zakhona Mbelu (29) starts constructing the exact sandwich on the order slip in front of her at the Fedics-owned cafeteria at Sanlam’s headquarters in Bellville, she becomes completely engrossed in the task at hand. Yet her quiet demeanour belies the determination and tenacity she has developed over the years as well as her adventurous
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