Potters House, Kyocera South Africa: 13 years of empowering our youth, and growing stronger

Kyocera SA staff with Potters House instructors and graduates.

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Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa (KDZA), in partnership with Potters House, a Soweto-based vocational non-profit training provider, recently celebrated their 13th graduation.

As part of its commitment to empowering young South Africans through skills training, KDZA supports Potters House’s xerography training programme through the provision of equipment and consumables required to train students in office automation equipment repair. On completion of the training programme, students are able to enter the IT/office automation industry job market.

This year, 16 students graduated from the programme, adding their numbers to the approximately 240 students who have graduated previously.

“The theme of this year’s graduation was ‘To Pursue Unlimited Human Potential’. One of Kyocera’s philosophies to finding purpose in life is to strive to make today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today,” said keynote speaker Ian Dury, Business Support Manager at KDZA.

Dury told the graduates that by graduating they have taken the first step towards making today better than yesterday.He spoke about Kaizen, a Japanese term meaning small incremental changes that result in a big change over time. He shared his experience of how these small changes shaped his career journey and differentiated between how some changes were forced changes and others were a choice. He encouraged the attendees of the graduation ceremony by sharing his belief that if you stay the course through ‘untiring effort, quiet dedication and the humble pursuit of truth’ you can achieve undreamed of and unlimited heights.

After the ceremony, graduates were invited to tour the Kyocera building, where they met staff and were able to experience something of what it means to work in a corporate environment.

Werner Engelbrecht, KDZA’s General Manager, said: “No matter how technical and automated the working world becomes, we will always need humans with practical skills to service and repair the machines. Kyocera’s CSI initiatives are, therefore, grounded in the creation of practical skills that address skills shortages and result in jobs.”

As a company we believe that practical, focused skills training is a viable way to secure employment, increase household income and thereby break the cycle of poverty in South Africa.

“Our long-term partnership with Potters House allows us to achieve exactly that and we look forward to many more graduations for many years to come.” Engelbrecht concluded.