adminRay Bande Senior Reporter
ERNEST Mutambanesango is a 26-year-old Form Six graduate from Chibuwe High School.
In the early years of his life, growing up in the searing heat of the remote Chibuwe area in Chipinge South constituency, young Ernest managed to attend primary and secondary education at Chibuwe Primary and Secondary schools, thanks to the dedication of his parents who ensured that their offspring got an education.
His dream unlike most of his peers in this largely underdeveloped community was to use education as a weapon against his family’s poverty.
After all, being an Agritex officer, a teacher and a nurse was all that life offered for Ernest and his peers in terms of formal employment.
Worse still, attaining proficiency even in those common professions would come at a price given that Chipinge South offers little, if any, tertiary training.
Dear reader, in some parts of the world, children are going to school every day. It is their normal life. But in other parts of the world such as Chibuwe in particular and Chipinge in general most young men go to school just to grow up as they wait to cross the mighty Limpopo River, Egoli-bound.
To his credit, Ernest made the most of his opportunity to get an education and passed his Advanced Level studies at Chibuwe High School.
Yes, life at school might not have been a bed of roses for Ernest -traversing the dry flatlands of the Lowveld on a daily basis just to attain an education – was and will never be an easy feat.
But today Ernest looks back with a beaming smile on his face as he suddenly has something much more highly regarded to look forward to in his life – a diesel and plant fitter in the making!
“I had never imagined becoming a diesel and plant fitter in my life. It is something that I had never dreamt of although I have always wanted a mechanical job. However, I am really grateful to Green Fuel for offering me this opportunity and I am looking forward to making the most of it,” said the youngster.
Ernest now finds himself turning nuts and bolts in a heavy-duty ethanol production industry as he takes engineering apprenticeship lessons at Green Fuel in Chisumbanje.
Interestingly, he is one of the 33 locals out of a total of 69 young men and women who have been recruited as apprentices that stretch for four years at Green Fuel’s ethanol plant in Chisumbanje.
Yes, 33 local out of a total of 69!
The apprenticeship training programme at Green Fuel, which came into being after recruiting its first batch of 33 students last year, is prioritising locals from Chipinge District and the disadvantaged Lowveld in particular.
To date, two batches – one in 2014 (33) and the other in 2015 (36) – have been recruited.
With a strict recruitment process, that distinctively separates the chaff from the grain, since inception, the Green Fuel apprenticeship programme has taken on 33 locals, 25 from Manicaland region, 10 from other areas.
The interns include seven females and 29 males, who were engaged through the Green Fuel Apprenticeship Training Programme.
The apprenticees will be exposed to trades like fitting, machining, instrumentation and control techs, electrical power engineering, millwrighting (multi-skilled), boiler-making, diesel plant fitting, motor mechanics, automobile electricians and motorcycle mechanics.
Green Fuel Area Training Officer Mr Vincent Moyo told journalists from various media houses during a media tour last Thursday that the initiative was meant to improve the livelihood of locals given the priority given to them in the recruitment process.
More importantly, he said, the company’s training programme was designed in response to an acute skills gap currently blighting the country owing to brain drain.
“Basically this programme has been earmarked mainly for locals and also for the nation since we also have a national obligation. We have also made it a point that we focus on multi-skilling hence the introduction of millwrighting.
“This is where we have one person undertaking a number of engineering skills such as electrical, automotove, boiler-making among others.
“Most of the programmes run for four years. We should also note that this is the only company recruiting a huge number of 36. Green Fuel recognised the hugely detrimental impact this was having on the country and decided to work with the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development to create an apprenticehip programme within the different business units operational within the company.
“The programme is just another part of Green Fuel’s social mandate in rural development and is already in its second year, having had a successful intake in 2014,” said Mr Moyo.
Mr Moyo added: “We want to ensure the development of a vibrant human capital base with skills sufficient to steer the sector into regional markets. Most tertiary institutions in the country do not have training programmes tailored to the skills required for the operation and maintenance of the unique machinery utilised in the ethanol sector and so, in this second phase of the apprenticeship training programme, Zimbabweans are training fellow Zimbabweans, ensuring the retention of local specialised skills.”
Online Reporter