Thank you South Africa !

It was an everlasting experience with the country and its people. This is the end of my assignment, but the beginning of a new relationship !

…and now I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends in Switzerland again !

More than just teaching !

There are still a lot of open issues until my departure on Oct 10^th and I will definitively enjoy the remaining teaching lessons the most, I will certainly miss these moments a lot. These lessons gave me a lot of joy and energy and I enjoyed even the big preparation part of it, I felt a lot of passion and I got a lot of new experiences in terms of exposure, methods, impact, contents, evaluation and adaption, it was an amazing learning opportunity for me, wow !

 

The training provided to the youth entrepreneurs includes:

Life Skills

• Self Management Skills – Using the SHAPE Model

  – S – Special Gifts/Talents H – Heart – What is your passion? A – Abilities – What are you good at? P – Personality – Getting to know yourself (Tested) E – Experiences – Using past Experiences (Good or Bad) for my advantage

• Character Development – Making Good Choices

  – Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, Good Citizenship

• Getting & Implementing a MAP (My Action Plan) 4 LIFE

  – Getting Vision – Writing a Personal Mission Statement Setting Worthy Goals Where am now in relation to those goals? What are my Options? Finding      Mentors who can assist Making it happen!

• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Creating good habits based on good values!

Business Skills

• Introduction to Starting a Business

• Entrepreneurship Success Stories – Why some made and others failed?

• Basic Computer Skills – Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Internet & E-mail

• Marketing – Strategy, How, When, Where, & tools available

• Business Simulator Board Game

• Financial Management – income statements, balance sheets, budgeting, cash flow, Tax, interest, planning, saving & investing

• Management – styles, responsibilities, roles, effectiveness & productivity

• How Successful Entrepreneurs Think – Getting in the right frame of mind

• Researching the viability of a business idea

• Legal aspects of running a business – registration, Tax, VAT

• Management functions and activities involved in running a business

• Costing and Pricing, including the relationships between costs, revenue and profits

• Understanding Demand & Supply – over & under…and how it influences the market

After all these weeks….

What I did, what I’m still doing:

– Writing the curriculum for personal and business finance for the youth-entrepreneurship-program (YEP) http://www.youth-entrepreneurship.co.za/

-Integrate and teach contents in classes in four different township community centers for youths, aged 18 – 25, once a  week for half a day.

– Implement and teach additional skills training (life and business skills) in classes.

– Support main program teacher in preparing training sessions and by giving inputs in classes and sharing ideas and discuss different kinds of training forms.

– Support the local charity organization in terms of education (for example “budget training” for younger Kids,14-18, and homeless), and ideas and opportunities (in terms of funding, strategy, synergies, connections)   http://www.mcmmiqlat.com/

-Teaching  basic financial skills and provide personal financial advice to various staff members of the community centers.

-Overall support the Paarl community in providing and sharing ideas and thoughts for further perspectives and opportunities.

– Taking pictures…..

There’s more to come soon !

“GET UP, STAND UP”

There is still a long way to stability for this nation and its people.

I’ve been working with and I’ve been teaching all kinds of people, I’ve been working at different locations, I’ve been working at different times and circumstances, I’ve experienced this nation and its people…and I think they have a chance, they have a chance to get out of poverty, to get out of the survival level….if they want to !

I know, there are circumstances beyond imagination, how people live, what they earn, unemployment, no food, no shelter, bad health conditions, but still they have a choice…if they want to !

We can help them, to help themselves, we can support them, but at the very end, they have to take the first step out, they have to start their journey by standing up and start walking, without blaming circumstances, without excuses, without justifications.

“Get up, stand up….stand up for your live”

More than…money !

Wow, time’s running ! 3 weeks and it feels like 3 months ! Just leaving the starting phase now and working on the first financial draft for the curriculum. We integrated parts of it in school this week and students are very keen to learn about “Income Statement”, “Budgeting” and “Cash flows”. I did teach them all this in a practical way so they are able to follow and integrate it in their private and business live. Exciting how they react, as most of them were never confronted with these terms and they pick it up quite easily. Part of the lessons are also talks about money and beyond;  values, relationships, reputation, dedication, we had some  intense discussions about it ! (some of the quotes we were discussing about I listed below) Most of my students are between 18 and 30,it’s very important to train them and elevate thier value and encourage them to attend the lessons of the “youth-entrepreneurship-programme”. Still a long way to walk but with better shoes…

Money and beyond:

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake. 

There are people who have money and people who are rich.

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. 

A good reputation is more valuable than money. 

Money is a strange business. People who haven’t got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles.

A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles

You have to go broke three times to learn how to make a living.

A fool and his money are soon parted. 

My goal wasn’t to make a ton of money. It was to build good Computers (Steve Jobs)

“Too many people spend money they earned..to buy things they don’t want..to impress people that they don’t like.”  

A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone.

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.” 

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn 

When I had money everyone called me brother 

He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all. 

Make money your god, and it will plague you like the devil.”

Know what you own, and know why you own it.” 

 

 

 

 

There’s so much more out there !

Another astonishing week behind me in Paarl and surroundings. met people from all different societies and environments, who are exposed to community work. For our youth-entrepreneurship-programm we operate at four different locations, where we intend to implement the new curriculum. Our aim is to train not just business skills but also the foundation, the basis to enter the business world: life skills (like trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, good citizenship, personality, relationsships, purpose..) And they are keen to learn, to pick up everything they can and it’s our aim that they’ll stick to the programm and get more people involved, who get from survival to stability to success to significance. There’s so much more out there, let them discover it !

It is real !

Just finished my first week in Paarl, from where I service all the communities around me. Met a lot of extraordinary people, unbelievable their effort and initiatives in supporting human beings and communities. A lot to learn from them, a lot to support them with my efforts and engagement. Looking forward to discovering and learning more about people and country and I’m motivated to give my best efforts to contribute my part to this project.