Rotary Pinetown projects revealed to US visitors

ROTARY Clubs global and local do tremendous work in communities not only assisting them with their needs but helping them to be self-sustainable.

Pinetown Rotary recently hosted Jim and Joey O’Meara from the United States and invited Highway Mail to join their tour of the education facilities in the KwaNdengezi area to see the difference Rotary’s help has made and identify further needs.

The first stop was Kwandengezi Education Centre, a joint project of KZN Department of Education and Rotary International.

This has become the hub of the nearby community as it is a resource centre for teachers, provides access to computers and provides computer training to learners and adults.

It has a well stocked library for teachers and people can go there for career information and even learn how to write and send their job applications and get assistance from volunteers.

An imported Skoolbo programme teaches learners, from as young as pre-school age, the basics.

“Our challenge is that the vast majority of township youth leave school with very limited exposure to computers or the Internet,” said Rotary Pinetown community services director, Bill Draper.

This accentuates and perpetuates the gap between themselves and more advantaged groups often resulting in friction and conflict.

“Our objective is to produce a minimum of 50 youths a year (from KwaNdengezi) who are completely familiar with and fluent in computers and the Internet by giving them intensive training from an early age, giving them ‘unlimited’ free access to the technology and equipment and making this learning process enjoyable. We hope to expand this service in numbers, other areas.”