Narrative Report
Ekupholeni Mental Health and Trauma Center
for: Global Philanthropy Alliance
September 2008-August 2009
1. Achievements
 Economic empowerment officer retained, who managed the Kickstart Project
together with a social worker, but also assisted youth and adults with additional
activities during this period, such as:
o Screening and advising 80 clients regarding micro-business start ups
o Training 36 adults and 8 grandmothers in small-business management
and assisting them to set up micro-businesses (90% of the businesses still
going strong)
o Weekly meetings with all business owners and 68 home and business site
visits
o Job placement for 16 adults and assistance with job search and
orientation for another 10 adults
o Placement of 19 adults (all female) at Ellerines Skills Center for Sewing
Courses (free of charge)
o Placement of 8 young adult clients on specific computer courses and 2 for
catering training
o For all placed individuals, we negotiated discounts with the training
institutions. 13 managed to raise the (discounted fees) with help of their
extended families, 6 had their own resources, 1 received a bursary, and
Ekupholeni assisted with partial or complete fee payment in the other
cases.
o 14 labour queries referred to the relevant legal and labour institutions
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Kickstart Activities:
o Career guidance for 28 young adults and teenagers
o >50 placements of school-aged teenagers back into relevant schools for
zero-fees (this is done by our social worker and the majority of the
teenagers are orphans who cannot always negotiate affectively for
themselves)
o Assessing 44 teenagers and young adults for skills development training,
including aptitude tests
o 4 teenagers were assisted with applications for university, one for
Technikon application, and 12 were referred to various Colleges
o One orphaned teenage girl who had passed her school-leaving exam was
placed on a Security Officer course, passed, and is now gainfully
employed
o Two girls were assessed and registered for Early Childhood Development
(ECD) training, which will enable them to work in or run crèches.
o 16 clients referred to St Anthony’s Skills Training Center after screening
and assessment, of which 12 were accepted for courses,
 3 for Office Administration
 2 for Plumbing
 2 for Carpentry
 2 to apprentice for Electricians
 1 for Bricklaying
 1 for Computer Course
 1 for Welding
Of these young people, one dropped out on insistence of her mother who
wanted her to rather get immediate income, 10 passed their courses at St.
Anthony’s and one has to write the final exam in February 2010. Of those
who passed, 3 have found employment, 2 are awaiting responses from
interviews and the rest are still being assisted with job applications.
Individuals who were assisted with tertiary applications will only receive their
exams in early January 2010. None have dropped out.
o Transport assistance in form of train tickets (to St. Anthony’s Skills
Training Center) for 8 of the students in need (orphans, no family
support) during their courses
o Assisting 30 clients to prepare and send out CVs
o Interview preparations / training (19 clients)
2. Most effective strategies in implementing this project
 All screened first re interest / aptitude and ability to persevere
 Long-term group or individual attendance a pre-requisite to ensure emotional
stability to manage the extra burden of studying
 Family screenings (regarding support for the young person, literacy levels,
income assessment (participation regarding fee payment) etc.
 Contracts with each individual who is placed, to ensure follow ups are honoured,
courses are completed and counseling is continued if necessary (as determined
by the case manager)
 Transport money weekly upon presentation of last week’s train ticket and
attendance confirmation from St Anthony’s
 Feedback sessions with case manager and continued therapy group attendance
if appropriate (motivating other youngsters)
3. Change / transformation in the community
 The project has been successful, especially families of boys who were referred
with severe behavior disorders were amazed at the changes in the boys as they
attended skills training (called “school” by the parents) regularly and got their
diplomas – new recognition and often first time family acceptance
 Increased referral of new behavior problem boys and significantly better group
attendance and behavior improvements by them as they want to “qualify” for
the Kickstart program
 For orphaned teenagers this is often the only chance to get any education to
later secure employment and financially support their younger siblings. They do
realize that and are amongst the most highly motivated students. They are also
very resourceful in securing employment after completing their courses.
4. Unexpected challenges, how we dealt with them, and what we learned
 The program is staff and time intensive, due to many follow ups with families
(home visits) and the necessity to assess each person individually
 Some families are not supportive in the long run as they expect immediate
income (though explained that this is not the case), and sometimes force the
young person to drop out for unreliable part time jobs or transactional sex (“get
a boyfriend and make him pay”)
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After completion of the course, some young people (especially boys) had little
idea how to go about applying for jobs, how to conduct themselves in interviews
etc. They had no help from their families in this regard, due to high long-term
unemployment of adult family members who have no or very limited skills and
have never applied for or held down a permanent job. Unfortunately, the school
in townships no longer doing career guidance to teach such matters, so we
started some workshops to deal with this.
We conceptualized CV writing and interview training workshops and ran two
such workshops after completion of the skills training in Oct and Nov 2009. The
number of interviews secured by the boys has steadily increased.
The majority of young adults as well as most parents (and other family members)
have little or no basic financial management skills, such as budgeting or
differentiating between essential and non-essential purchases. This is due to
long-term poverty, long-term unemployment (i.e. they have never had access to
a regular salary or wage to use as a base for budgeting), as well as a traumabased day-to-day-living mentality. Workshops on how to manage money are
essential to enable budgeting, wise expenditure, saving, and staying out of debt.
In summary: there is a huge need for such skills development and training
projects, particularly for marginalized youth, i.e. orphans and children with
learning disability and suffering environmental deprivation. Much consistent
support is needed, and the skills development has to be preceded by thorough
screening and accompanied (followed up with) job application and money
management workshops.
5. What could GPA do in the future to be a better grant-maker?
 We have found GPA a pleasure to work with and were very pleased and excited
when we were honoured with a surprise visit this year.
6. Additional information about the project
 Our Kickstart Project is only open to young people who are already our clients
and have gone through the relevant counseling process to be emotionally
stabilized to benefit from the skills development. It is an adjunct to our psychosocial (therapeutic) youth programs (and in a different format to our adult
programs) to encourage holistic development and healing to support the most
marginalized (orphans, youth with behavior problems or abysmal social
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circumstances) in a process of moving into a healthier pro-social lifestyle and
maintain it for life.
Learning problems are prevalent amongst the youth that are referred to us.
These learning barriers are mostly environmentally related and are a result of
abject poverty, chronic unresolved trauma (e.g. multiple bereavements), lack of
stimulation and early childhood support. These clients often present with
symptoms and behaviours that are reminiscent of mild mental retardation while
they are actually due to the environmental and psychological factors above. This
means these young people have potential to learn but have been discouraged
for a long time, which has led to low confidence and self-esteem as well as
reduced motivation and resulting learning delays (e.g. missing out on work in
Grade 7, but being “promoted” to the next Grade regardless, which leads to
complete academic failure later on as the basics are not there).
Skills training is often the only feasible possibility especially for boys who are
only semi-literate and have often been victimized in school for many years due
to their low performance. Skills development is the only way to gain self-esteem
and gain employment, which in turn is the only way to refrain from a life based
on crime.
Skills development / training is not highly regarded in SA society and not widely
advertised. Many young people and their families have no idea how to access it.
Many parents are illiterate or semi-literate and cannot provide academic support
for their children, yet often insist that their children must attend school in a
language of instruction that is not their mother-tongue and not spoken by the
parents (e.g. English), which in turn leads to many delays and academic failures
due to language barriers. However, school principals are not permitted to
“discriminate” against children who do not speak the language used as a
medium of instruction. This leads to numerous complications in over-populated
classes (40-50 children per class are quite common).
We thank the Global Philanthropy Alliance for the support, which has enabled us to lastingly
change the lives of numerous young people.
Kindest regards
Antje Manfroni
Director: Ekupholeni