Online Reporter
Isaac Waniwa [email protected]
ESTABLISHED by local churches in 1993 in response to a humanitarian crisis caused by massive job losses triggered by the implementation of the 1991 Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap), Bulawayo Project Centre (BPC) is today among the leading vocational training centres in Bulawayo. The project started as a feeding programme for many families that had been thrown onto the city’s streets after their breadwinners were retrenched as a result of Esap.
Many of these families could no longer afford to pay rent hence many of them were now living on the streets and struggling to put food on the table. In response to this humanitarian crisis, local churches pooled resources together and started a feeding programme for the affected families as well as providing temporary shelter.
The churches later realised that what was sustainable was not to ‘give a man fi sh but to teach the man how to fi sh’ and this led to the establishment of vocational skills training hubs.
Today Bulawayo Project Centre boasts of fi ve operational vocational skills training hubs which are in Cowdray Park, Nketa, Njube, Thorngrove and Donnington suburbs.
The non-governmental organisation has during the past 33 years churned out more than 20 000 graduates.
What makes BPC stand out as a vocational training centre is its minimum entry qualifi cations. According to the centre’s programmes, partnerships and communications offi cer, Mr Tichafa Chiramba, all that is required for one to be enrolled is his or her passion and commitment to the chosen trade.
Many youths have in the past failed to enrol for vocational training because the minimum entry qualifi cation for many institutions of higher learning is fi ve Ordinary Level passes.
The coming on board of BPC therefore rekindled hopes of many young people who had surrendered their lives to fate after failing to pursue careers of their choice because they could not qualify for enrolment.
What is even more comforting is that breast feeding is no longer a barrier to vocational training at BPC as mothers are allowed to bring their babies to class.
The courses being offered by BPC include Hairdressing, Motor Mechanics, Beauty Therapy, Hotel Culinary Studies, Cutting and Design, Welding and Metal Fabrication as well as Carpentry. Mr Chiramba said the centre’s students were not just taken through skills training but also entrepreneurial mentorship so that they are able to establish their own businesses soon after graduating.
He said for example those undergoing hairdressing and beauty therapy training were taught how to solicit for clients in their communities.
The Cowdray Park senior hub manager Mrs Lindiwe Moyo, said because of their hands-on approach to skills training, some of their students are offered jobs while still on industrial attachment.
“Some of our Hotel and Culinary Studies graduates are now working for popular fast foods outlets in the city because they impressed during their industrial attachment,” she said.
Mrs Moyo said of some of the Cutting and Design graduates were running their own businesses and one of them was now supplying uniforms to different schools in and around Bulawayo.
Mr Chiramba said after training, the centre through its business incubation programme, assists the graduates to translate their skills into sustainable livelihoods. He said under this programme, graduates are offered spaces to operate from and during the period the graduates will, apart from producing their own products, also train other students. After sometime the graduates are then weaned off so that they can look for their own spaces to operate from.
Mr Chiramba said to ensure their graduates’ competencies are recognised, locally and internationally, they send them for Trade Tests which are done by the Industrial Training and Trade Testing Department under the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development. It was a hive of activity at BPC’s Cowdray Park training hub when journalists visited the hub recently during a National Aids Council (NAC) organised media tour.
The students undergoing training in various skills were busy at work and journalists had the opportunity to sample some of their products which are of very high quality, a confi rmation that BPC has responded to Government’s clarion call to institutions of higher learning to churn out graduates that produce goods and services as opposed to just having paper qualifi cations. Meanwhile, Cowdray Park residents have lauded BPC for empowering, especially, the Girl Child.
They said in the past most girls were forced to engage in prostitution for a living thereby exposing themselves to risks of contracting HIV/Aids. “Our girls, many of whom were victims of teenage pregnancies, are being empowered by BPC’s skills training programme.
Many of the graduates are now earning a living from their skills and as such are being cushioned from the vagaries of poverty,” said Mr Themba Moyo who said two of his relatives graduated from the centre.
