Unemployment for Graduates

Unemployment of graduates

Going to neither university nor college in today’s world seems to mean nothing. As holding a Degree or Diploma no longer hold the promise of jobs for young South African as hundreds of thousands of them battle to find jobs.

We believed that a university graduate is generally more employable than those without degrees, but that does no longer the case the case. Lack of work experience, however, is another significant drawback, as most graduates in search of jobs either lack work experience practical. One of them is successfully matching those with skills to the jobs which require them.

Another apparent problem is that prospective students do not make thorough research before choosing their careers. What normally happens is that they flock in given career choices in a hope to get jobs only to find that their chosen careers are not in demand.

According to one of our sources university students struggle to get placements because they cannot make good relationship with the employers during their time of studying. What he argued is that students should in a continuous basis visit the employers to get experience, as a result they build trust in them and ultimately when there are openings the employers will appoint them.

Bambani Community organisation for the orphans.

Bambanani Community Organisation gives hope to the orphans.

                                                                                                Trevor Hlungwani

Soon after I dropped a letter with my numbers at Bambanani Community Organisation for the orphans asking the owner, Ma- Angie Mahlangu to call me, I received a call from her asking me to pay a visit. I was terrified that she was going to cut the letter to pieces in front of me because I had failed in a couple of past arrangements to honour my promise. So with a mix of ecstasy and curiosity, I immediately honoured her wish.

I walked over to her small, partly dilapidated office at the orphanage centre, where I found her poised on her chair with spectacles lowered and resting on the tip of her nose as my mother used to before she sorted her knitting needle and wool. I noticed that she had the letter on her table which I had wrote in Sesotho with an intention to try impress her into letting me do an interview with her, a red pen rested between the pages.

She proceeded to point out to me a few grammatical errors in the letter and handed it to me for in case I needed to write another one to her in the near future. And said she doesn't mind me doing an interview with her, however as you know with these things, there is always a 'But' at the end. The condition was that I will have to let her read the final draft before it went for publishing, we agreed on that. And then she walked out of the office into her kitchen and brought with herself two cups of coffee.

Situated in Soshanguve Block H, Bambanani Orphanage centre caters for about 25 children. Most of them are HIV/ AIDS orphans and children from severely disadvantaged settlements of Soshanguve and Winterveldt. The organisation struggle to fulfil its obligations as the operators relies entirely on donations and hand-outs from potential donors or individuals.

She pointed out the problem she faces as she doesn't have a stable sponsorship. She said that she at least receives bread on Sundays from a Pick n pay in Sinoville. Also churches sometimes give her money to buy electricity and pay rent. Another problem is that the roof of one of the rooms where the children sleeps are leaking and people gives her empty promises of saying they will donate materials and ending up not donating.

The organisation has a typical monthly income of R2 000 but it cannot sustain the organisation. The organisation also has a close partnership with Soshanguve clinic, Khensani Primary school and DC Marivate Secondary school.

It started 2 years ago after her mother's death but let me take you back a little further. Her late mother, Gogo Poppy Skhosana started the orphanage in 2003. In a proposal she wrote herself to the Department Of Social Development and various organizations requesting sponsorship, she wrote that she saw the need to start the orphanage as she was touched by the number of orphans, who were mostly under ages in her surroundings. Also she lost her son who was a police officer from HIV/AIDS. So she started the orphanage herself and funded it from her own pocket. After a couple of months good Samaritans recognized her good deeds and started donating food parcels. When she died in 2011, Ma-Angie took over.

Ma-Angie is cheerful and soft-spoken and every now and then when she mentioned the children's names her sentences were punctuated with gentle laughs, I could tell that she loves them. Driven by love, Ma-Angie who is an orphan herself said she will make sure that all the children in the orphanage go to school to have the best education. “I will be disappointed to see them as criminals because that's not what I'm teaching them," she said.

A photo frame captured on Christmas day comprising of the children was mounted on the wall and facing her chair. "When I'm discouraged by not having enough food to feed my children I look to that photo frame and it gives me the courage to try my best," she said. Her face lightened as she told me the names of her children in the frame. In any event, what I found most interesting is that she knows the names of all the children in her orphanage, which cannot be said for most of my lecturers.

In between our interview, the children would come to me, "Ngi shoote" as they asked me to take a picture of them but she reprimanded them. "Mololo o jang o roga o mongwe," directly translated into 'A mouth that is eating insults the other,’ Gogo Maria Nhlope who helps with cooking said there are lot of rich people who are living a luxury life but they fail to make a difference in the lives of the poor and the orphans by extension.