Cape Town - Thirteen youngsters from Philippi and surrounding areas have increased their chances of getting employment after being equipped with new skills.
They graduated with coding and developer skills run by UCT GSB Solution Space and were celebrated at an event where the graduands presented the micro-apps they developed, and received their certificates.
The Ayoba Developer Programme has been running since 2021 and has just kicked off its second cohort for the year, which runs for four months at a time out of Philippi Village, and aims to upskill local youth (the programme is free of charge to participants).
Xhanti-Lomzi Fatyela, who lives in Khayelitsha and previously worked as a call centre agent and in retail, said when he first started the programme he was scared and sceptical but ended up having an incredible experience.
“The other participants became friends I can depend on in hard times and I learnt how to be a team player also,” he said.
Sandy Matiwana who is the oldest of the group was stuck at home unemployed for three years before joining the programme. “I am a shy person, but I learnt a lot and I adapted because I had to,” she said.
"It was a great opportunity, and I am proud it come out of our own area. We were all in it - helping each other. Thank you so much for affording us this opportunity.”
At the graduation, two teams from cohort 1 presented micro-apps that work within the all-in-one messaging app called ‘ayoba’, which they developed with support from programme partner Digital Academy.
One of the micro-apps helped match people from the community with opportunities for programmes in the Philippi area, and the other micro-app that the students developed displayed products from local spaza shops.
Also present at the event - which was hosted at UCT GSB Solution Space's Waterfront venue - were alumni from the pilot programme (which ran last year), as well as the new participants for cohort 2, who just kicked off their programme this month, which will run out of Philippi Village until December 2023.
The pilot for the Ayoba Developer Programme in 2021 saw 11 students graduate, some of whom received employment shortly afterwards. A few of the graduates from cohort 1 who were not present at the graduation event on Friday have since secured jobs.