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Careers training
SOS Children’s Villages, Zimbabwe
November 13, 2004

With unemployment in Zimbabwe running at over 70%, a good tertiary qualification is important in the highly competitive job market.

Children whose parents are unable to provide a home for them, and who grow up in an orphanage, face particular problems when they try to find a job as they do not have the contacts and links in the community that most families provide.

Aware of these difficulties, the SOS Children’s Villages ensure that, wherever possible, youths from the Villages train for a suitable career. Some lucky ones win scholarships to study at university. Others train at local colleges or on-the-job in fields such as travel, computers, fashion design, building, hairdressing, secretarial or hotel catering and management.

Teenagers who are interested in a career in engineering or agriculture can go to the Vocational Training Centre on SOS Maizelands Farm near Bindura. Youths from the SOS Children’s Villages in Mozambique also study at this training centre and about 15 youths from other disadvantaged backgrounds receive scholarships from the international parent body in Austria.

Students can take a three-year, government-registered diploma course in agriculture which also includes training at the maize mill, soya bean extruder and cooking oil press. Trainees are given individual projects in either vegetable or livestock production, and the money they earn from these projects is a valuable addition to their monthly grants from the organisation.

When they graduate, most of the trainees join the SOS Young Farmers Scheme on the commercial section of Maizelands Farm. They are given a house, which is theirs for life, and can lease land from the farm to conduct their farming activities. The Young Farmers Scheme provides a model settlement scheme which ensures full utilisation of the resources provided and upon which other settlement schemes in the country can be based.

The 23 graduates at the Scheme had a successful farming year in 2003/2004 under the guidance of the Maizelands Farm manager. Their profits for the year, after paying for their living, could exceed the equivalent of USD6,000 each.

The engineering section of the Vocational Training Centre provides apprenticeships in fitting and turning for youths with ‘O’ levels and trains other youngsters as welders or metalworkers.

For many years VTC Engineering offered good service and quality items on a commercial basis to local mines and farms. With the decline in large-scale commercial farming, it has diversified into other projects. In particular, it makes attractive, practical metal furniture for SOS Children’s Villages and schools in the region with recent orders going to Malawi, Mauritius and Zambia. The range of furniture includes tables, chairs, sofas, beds and room dividers for the home and desks, benches and blackboards for schools.

Visit the SOS Children's Villages fact sheet

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