WATCH: Alfeco Group changes lives with bursary awards
Alfeco Group empowered students from different institutions, as well as its internal staff, with bursaries during its award ceremony.
Alfeco Group offered bursaries to deserving students during its award ceremony held on September 2 at Newmarket’s Ascot Mews.
Striving forward with youth empowerment through education, the Alfeco Group launched its first-ever inaugural Bursary Awards Ceremony.
Those present included, City of Ekurhuleni’s Jullie Beya, IDC’s Luluma Siqithi and University of Johannesburg head of metallurgy Prof Elizabeth Makhatha.
The occasion was also attended by EWC’s Manie Stoltz, Department of Labour representatives and MerSeta officials.
Neil Reddy, business strategy group executive, explained the group provided much-needed bursaries worth R2.8-million to 40 higher education students.
The students are from the University of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni West TVET College, including 12 internal staff members from the group.
“The Alfeco Bursary Awards Ceremony gave us an opportunity to provide debt relief for the students as a form of youth upliftment. It was also a way of encouraging our employees with up-skilling opportunity and advancement within the manufacturing industry,” said Reddy.
The criteria for the student recipients were based on a strategic legacy plan of the Alfeco Group.
They focused on helping final-year students in the metallurgy, finance and engineering faculties.
“It was so we could potentially provide career growth opportunities using our pre-existing internships, learnerships or apprenticeships ran with our training authority body partners, MerSeta,” he said.
Keynote speaker and author Veli Ndaba gave an inspiring talk and attendees were entertained by Abafana bo Gedla with traditional songs and dances.
CEO of the Alfeco Group Sachin Ahuja inspired the students to aspire to use their education and experience to be entrepreneurs.
Congratulations in order
Makhatha thanked the Alfeco Group for relieving their students from financial debt and opening opportunities for all stakeholders.
“The bursaries mean a lot to our department, industry and the physical metallurgy students. These bursaries will build students’ confidence and motivate our staff members to ensure our department stays relevant to the industries we serve and produce students for,” she said.
She urged school-leavers to consider metallurgy as a career since it is an unconventional career that many high school learners and their parents have little to no knowledge of.
Bursary recipient from UJ, Giovanni Borges said it was a privilege to receive the bursary after continuous hard work.
“I’ve been working hard to continue my studies and enter the finance corporate world, no matter the circumstances. My parents had to borrow money over the past two years from family and friends to pay for my studies,” he said.
