Career guidance for enthusiastic learners

BLUE Roof Life Space in Wentworth teamed up with The Domino Foundation, a non-profit organisation which impacts 13 500 beneficiaries through its eight programmes on a daily basis, to conduct a career development and guidance programme.

Thrilled to be a part of the partnership developed with the Blue Roof centre to equip learners with information on how to make good subject choices for their future careers, the Domino Foundation’s Rowan Phillips, described the unemployment rate of South Africa’s young people between 15 and 24 years as a catastrophe.

“The Domino Foundation’s life skills and skills Development programmes is very aware of the enormous challenges in finding a job the young people on the programme will face. A question every learner has to grapple with is, what are the right subjects for him or her to maximise their chances of being employable? A matric certificate is no guarantee. Young people need help in making informed choices long before the critical Grade 12 exams. To fill the career-guidance counselling gap in less-well-resourced schools,” he said.

The Domino team organised for 180 Grade 9 learners from Amaoti 3 Combined School, North of Durban, to go through the career guidance offered by Blue Roof Life Space. The Jacobs-based youth centre provides holistic care for young people looking for a safe place where they can discover more about who they are and what direction they want to go in life. The learners were educated on careers as they went through the programme at Blue Roof’s state-of-the-art career guidance centre.

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Nobuhle Ndlovu, head of Domino’s skills development programme, said the aim was to help learners understand career options ahead of them and then, through career guidance, to enable them to choose their Grade 10 subject packages in line with whatever option they decide on.

“We want to broaden the learners’ grasp of possible careers and enable them to be economically-active participants in the future,” she said. Blue Roof’s Nicole Smith, said that the centre’s technologically-advanced programme empowers learners to make the right decisions about their future, from subject selection to choice of tertiary institution.

Leigh-Ann Stevens from Domino’s research and evaluation department, which charted the impact of the course on the participants said, “We had to know whether these students knew what they wanted to study, which possible subject streams they could take, what is their level of understanding of possible career options available and what their concerns for their future are.”

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Follow-up surveys of the learners after their Blue Roof visit will show if their perspectives have shifted and if they now have clarity on possible future studies. “We want to support the high school learners who have come through our primary school life skills programme. We are walking a journey with these Grade 9 learners to build a talent pipeline for future bursaries through our skills development programme. We can then plan to prepare these learners and support them when they get to their matric and are setting their sights on tertiary education.

The skills programme also runs careers and university days at high schools for Grades 11 and 12 learners in the township schools we work with to help them with university applications and support,” said Ndlovu.

Nobuhle invited potential donors interested in supporting learners in their future tertiary studies through the programme’s bursary scheme to email her on skills@domino.org.za or contact her on 031 563 9605, or Tarin Stevenson via tarin@domino.org.zac  

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