Fujitsu SA has presented a group of young adults with unique business awards, as part of its Learning Through Experience mentorship programme. The group of fourteen students from Eastbank High and Minerva High, in Alexandra, have completed a nine-month business training course, where they were provided the opportunity to acquire technology and business skills as well as business terminology, while being expected to run their own company under the watchful eye of mentors.
“Fujitsu SA launched its Learning Through Experience mentorship programme in 2006, with the goal of imparting real business skills to young people aged between 16 and 17 years," says Nikki Carnegie-Floyd, Marketing Manager of Fujitsu and programme founder. “The first programme saw eight students from the Eastbank High School and seven from King Edward School participating in the programme.”
Various sessions were held at Fujitsu's headquarters in Rivonia, where knowledge was acquired over a period of nine months and applied to the students' own company, which they named Young Entrepreneurial Minds.
After nominating a board of directors and functional managers, they entered a process of deciding which products and services they would sell. Over the following nine months they undertook activities such as car-washing, organising monthly braais, making Valentine gifts and jewellery, and cultivating a vegetable garden, while being expected to run a profitable company making use of the usual management and reporting structures.
“The reason we opted for a nine-month stint actively running a company as opposed to purely classroom-based courses is to ensure our students had a chance to learn the softer skills necessary in modern corporate life, those skills not easily conveyable from a textbook,” adds Carnegie-Floyd. “Gaining an understanding of the realities of corporate life; business processes and procedures form a critical part of the course.”
“In addition, giving the students a chance to converse among themselves and with other Fujitsu employees within a corporate environment, also raises their business terminology in the necessary language of English. The graduates complete their nine months knowing they will be able to adapt with more ease into any business environment in future.”
The Learning Through Experience mentorship programme forms part of Fujitsu SA's aim of playing an active role in capacity building, driven by a moral obligation towards social responsibility and personal empowerment. After nine months, the learners raised R6 000, which was donated to three local charities. These charities are Play Pumps SA, Abangani eNkosini and the Association of Francois Xavier Bagnoud (FXB). Play Pumps SA provides fresh water supplies to rural schools. As the school children spin on a roundabout, fresh clean water is pumped from deep underground into a storage tank, for use by the entire community. Abangani eNkosini looks after orphaned and vulnerable children mainly of school-going age, in Alexandra. FXB also takes care of orphaned and vulnerable children.
Following the success of the programme, Fujitsu SA is now sponsoring a cycle race from George to Port Elizabeth that will see the local Fujitsu team competing against its UK peers. The sponsorships from the event will pay for a play pump to be erected in a rural school.
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