THE Robert Sobukwe Trust has opened a craft tech training club for local youth in the previously disadvantaged communities of Umasizakhe, Kroonvale, Asheville, Santaville and the two informal settlements of Riemvaasmaak and 7de Laan.
The club is currently training nine interns from these communities. The programme is facilitated by Dr Roger Bremen who has a doctorate in computer science, obtained from the University of Bremen in Germany.
He is also the founder of the Fundakit tools, used in the training.
This training forms part of the centre’s vision to restore the legacy of the political icon, Sobukwe, who strongly believed that the youth had a right to education. The club started operating at the beginning of the year and is situated at the Robert Sobukwe Museum and Learning Centre that is currently being developed in Umasizakhe.
The programme is funded by the Department of Arts and Culture and training sessions are from Monday to Friday between 08:00 and 15:15.
According to course facilitators, “The main aims of this programme are to train the youth from these communities to be able to develop their own technologies through coding, sourcing, hard and software development, as well as be able to perform narrative and audio recording.”
The craft tech training entails the use of recycled material consisting of plastic bottles and other unused material combined with computational technologies.
The Fundakit tools enable the young people to combine computation (programming and wireless sensor networking) with recycled and arts material.
“The training will be marketed to schools and the broader community at large by the current interns who will serve as facilitators,” he said.
This will go a long way in addressing the four key challenges in the 21st century, namely creativity, collaboration, critical skills and communication.
The centre calls upon the schools and parents to make use of the resources in the club by sendi children between the ages of 10 and 18 to attend workshops at no cost. Schools or organisations interested in this technological innovation can contact robertsobukwetrust@gmail.com for more info.
