Durban – On Wednesday, eThekwini municipality mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, officially opened the Westown Training Centre in Westown, Shongweni established by the Westown Foundation and Stefanutti Stocks Academy to provide training and employment opportunities in the field of construction.
Kaunda thanked both the foundation and academy for establishing the centre.
“We view this initiative as a perfect response to the president’s call for various stakeholders to build a social compact to address unemployment challenges as outlined in the Presidential Jobs Summit. Therefore, we must strengthen the partnership between government and business to ensure the creation and protection of decent jobs, with a focus on addressing youth unemployment,”he said.
The mayor said the opening of the centre forms part of the City’s job creation project.
“As the city, we have also embarked on an aggressive programme through the Mayoral Job Creation, Catalytic Project and Skills Revolution War Room which is championed by the Mayor. As part of the skills revolution, we are collaborating with social partners to provide training to unemployed graduates through work readiness programmes,” he said.
Kaunda said it is an undeniable fact that many citizens remain poor and without hope of getting out of the cycle of grinding poverty.
“Currently, the unemployment rate in the city stands at 33.8% which is 630 000 people, and the hardest-hit sector of our population is the youth. As the city, we have committed to half this high rate of unemployment by 2026 and we are fully aware that the municipality alone cannot be able to achieve this target,” he said.
A joint statement issued by the foundation a the academy said, over the next two years, the training facility will provide development and training opportunities for up to 15 qualifying individuals per intake, to accumulate knowledge, gain experience, increase their employability, and be CETA certified in certain specific construction skills.
These include construction hand tools, safety awareness, brick work, plaster, painting, basic concrete, reinforcing and formwork training.
The statement said a construction plant simulator, equipped with a variety of modules for operator training and staffed by various qualified trainers, will give trainees a sense of life ‘on the job’.
“It is anticipated that over the two-year period 60-80 operators will qualify and around 500 people will pass through the academy equipped with the relevant skills to find work in the construction sector within the province, some of which will be at Westown,” said the statement.
Sean Bergsma, chairperson of the Westown Foundation, said the outer-west has lagged behind many of the province’s regions in terms of development, investment and growth opportunities.
“The Westown Foundation has been set up to facilitate and amplify local socio-economic opportunities that the development of Westown will create in the surrounding communities,” said Bergsma.
Managing director of Stefanutti Stocks Coastal Civils Discipline, Matthew Horwill, said the construction company offers development opportunities to individuals from the community even if they are not directly employed on the project/s they are working on.
“Our community operator training will create capacity beyond the project’s requirement, thus contributing to a provincial pool of accredited, local surface machinery operators that are able to offer an accredited skill when seeking employment on other developments and construction sites across the province,” said Horwil.
Carlos Correia, the chief executive officer of Fundamentum Dev Co (FDC), said the launch of the centre is the first of many socio-economic and community development projects the foundation will be involved in over the coming years.
“We want to ensure that each of them has a meaningful and lasting impact. This is why we have started this journey with partners like the Stefanutti Stocks Academy and The Learn Project, which have proven track records of good planning and long-term success.”