Last week, several Social Employment Fund participants of Awarenet were interviewed to share their experiences workin in the SEF programme.
This part is about Siyanda Manana’s story and the impact the Social Employment Fund had on his life:
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After he graduated from high school, Siyanda Manana used to work as a salesman at a second hand shop in town. However, he lost his job ending up in a difficult financial position. But he did not give up and obtained a new job at a hardware store. Before joining the SEF programme, Siyanda was also a volunteering narrator at the South African Library for the Blind, a job he still does today and greatly enjoys. Last year in August a friend working at the Joza Youth Hub told him to drop his CV there because of the interesting job opportunities. After he followed his friend’s advice, Siyanda received a call for a meeting with three other applicants. At that meeting he got interviewed and first heard about the SEF programme. Because it went well, he got called two days later and was told that he could be a tutor for Robotics and Coding within the SEF programme. Happy to receive such a commitment, he joined the programme instantly. Because he had no prior experience regarding Robotics and Coding, he attended a two week training programme where he was taught all the basics of coding and programming. Siyanda started to enjoy teaching robotics very much – resulting in him winning the final competition the applicants had to absolve. As he was very interested in this completely new thematic area he was now working in, Siyanda started to do research online. He read about various different topics regarding robotics and coding such as Line Following and how to program correctly trying to improve and introduce relevant content to the lessons. Siyanda has learned a lot during his time in the SEF programme and also has acquired a lot of new skills which have become a fundamental part of his life. Working with children he learned to be patient, professional and reliable. He understood that every learner learns at their own speed and has their own mindset and skills. Siyanda used to be a person who couldn’t control his temper well and who got emotional relatively quickly. At SEF he has learned to be patient and to have open ears. “I have learned from the learners and vice versa” he said. Another aspect he wanted to point out is that he has a lot of fun working with children, especially the primary school learners as they are eager to know more, show curiosity and therefore ask a lot of questions during lessons. He is happy to get to work with children because they make him forget all his worries and sorrows. For him, teaching is a form of escaping a harsh reality. Working with children really makes him happy and he can imagine continuing to teach in his future working career. Because he can read isiXhosa and English perfectly, Siyanda is planning on opening a reading booth where he can teach learners from grade 1 until grade 7 how to read and how to write. His time at SEF changed his life for the better and he is grateful for being able to do what he enjoys. |