What is UPSKILL Barrydale?
What I originally wanted to name the NPC was UPSKILL Africa! but I found it had been taken, I then realized that my vision of teaching youth to be artisans would start by happening in my hometown Barrydale. I have lived in my lovely little town for almost 14 years and the one thing that I’ve realized is that school gives you no real skill that you can make a living with once you leave.
This year all the matric students from the school passed and everyone was so proud of the achievement, so I asked their teacher Mr. Band what they had planned for their lives ahead. Mr. Brand said he had asked them all the same question and not one of them had any idea. Why is it that after 12 years of study when you are at your full potential as a student with your life ahead of you, you find yourself with no prospect of a job in your future? The days when I grew up there was the option of a trade school where you spent the last 5 years of schooling learning trades that you could use to make a living once you left school, It was looked down on as a school for the underachievers but those students left school with a few skills that set them up for a career.
If you now had to look at how many university graduates have no work but you won’t find a plumber, electrician, carpenter, house renovator, roofing specialist, or solar installer without a job, Why is it that none of these skills are taught at school? And that no one makes the connection! Well, that is the million rand question and in a small town, this becomes even more apparent. When you see what the artisans charge and that their fees are way out of the reach of most poor households to afford even a basic call-out fee to repair a roof or fix the plumbing.
Why do we let our youth down who have dedicated 12 years of their lives in the hands of educators? That has not given them the life skills they need to survive in the real world out there. They were hard-working enough to pass the demands put on them to finish their schooling now leave them in their community with no skills for them to be a constructive participant in the growth of your community in any way at all.
“If you mentor and train an Artisan you give them a livelihood that they can take with them anywhere they go and they keep on learning and get more experience and will never be without a job.”
The vision of UPSKILL Barrydale is to bring all the mentors in the community who have spent their lives mastering a career in a skill they love and that took a lifetime for them to learn and have them give back their knowledge for a few hours a week or a day to teach youth their skills. What this does is build community, give youth the mentoring and attention they lack in their community as well as give pride to both the teacher and the student.
This can grow quickly to bring in more skilled teachers and exchange students as well as create new business ventures and teaching-the-teacher programs that will allow gifted students to become teachers and help start UPSKILL Programs in the neighboring towns where they become the mentors. The Youth cannot afford to costs of studying elsewhere and they will need money for rent, food, travel, and all the other costs that come with leaving their hometown. When a student knows they are being taught to become a teacher it wires the brain in a different way that makes the student more responsible and attentive to what they learning. Learning a skill by doing the actions yourself and seeing the final result that you achieved practically is true learning.
UPSKILL Barrydale plans to be the pilot program for this project to roll out in Barrydale. This ground roots project is a necessity and not an idea, it is going to be an amazing success by giving youth a chance to become constructive, valuable, skilled, and proud contributors to the building up of their own town and our country of South Africa, from the ground up.
Thank You for being interested in participating in UPSKILL…. Barrydale … UPSKILL South Africa.
