We were enthralled by the role play! This group had to act out ‘innovative’
FunDza’s “Branding Me” workshops might fall under our Developing Young Writers Programme, but it’s far more than that. The workshop focuses on building skills of how to ‘brand’ yourself in job interviews and application letters. Participants learn about the differences between soft and hard skills, and learn new vocabulary to better describe the soft skills they have acquired in their life experiences to date.
One of the beneficiaries of this programme is Etafeni Centre in Nyanga township. FunDza runs the workshop for a day during their six-week “Fit for Life” programme.
“Groups of young adults (60% young women) spend six weeks – all day every day – looking at themselves, their life stories, their goals, their values. There is a lot of work done around sexuality and space is offered for the young people to articulate, perhaps for the first time, what it is they want for themselves – not what culture, peer pressure or the consumer society determines.” ~ Etafeni website
If we were asked to pick one word from the list of soft skills that we teach these young adults (i.e. dedicated, meticulous, understanding level-headed, discreet etc.) which is most applicable to the Fit for Life participants, it would be ‘persevering’.
Throughout the day’s workshop we get to know the participants as individuals; we find out what their work experiences are and discover what roles they may have fulfilled at school, such as being in sporting teams or choirs. Many of them don’t realise that their choice of extra-mural activities is a great indicator of who they are and of the kind of employee they may be as a result.
In writing a paragraph about her skills, one young woman mentioned that she is ‘persevering’ but she didn’t provide a concrete example to indicate how. While providing her with personal feedback it transpired that for the past two years she has been volunteering at a home for disabled children in her community where she had been responsible for 16 children with varied disabilities.
Another young woman saw someone play a violin when she was a child and said that she dreamed of becoming a violin player herself one day, even though no one else in her family played any musical instruments. When she was a teenager she started lessons and now she plays in a group.
Many participants also doesn’t pass matric after their first attempt. So they have had to persevere and find ways to go back and do it again.
Being able to find the words to write about these experiences fluently and with confidence, and to recognise the value of their experience – whether it represents an official ‘job’ or not – can be profoundly empowering. In every one of the Branding Me workshops there comes a moment when there is a shift: we see some of the young people begin to thread their new vocabulary in with their life experiences, making them as impressive on paper as they are in person.