Mitchell's Plain career expo aims to bridge the gap between job seekers and opportunities in the community

The Mitchell’s Plain Community Advice and Development Project, better known as Mitchell’s Plain Advice Office, are hosting a career expo this week to empower the youth by providing them direct access to a variety of career paths and educational opportunities.

This initiative also aims to bridge the gap between job seekers and opportunities in the community, providing valuable resources for professional development and employment.

‘’Young people, in Mitchell’s Plain specifically, find themselves in a situation where they go to school for 12 years and then want to decide on a career when they basically have matriculated and that then means that they are unemployed and they did not prepare to go and study, simply because there was not enough work done prior to them getting into grade 9 to explain to them the path forward beyond matric. So now we get them coming into our office wanting to know what are the opportunities that's out there for them as young people who are unemployed, who have matriculated, and even those who have left school early and this career exhibition then tries to deal with those kind of things so that young people at grade nine level can already get a sense of what are the careers available in the market, what are the subject choices that they must take so that they can follow their career of the future and at which institutions would then be the best institutions to go to, post school, to then study in terms of their careers of choice,’’ said Jerimia Thuynsma, Project Coordinator at Mitchell’s Plain Community Advice and Development Project.

PICTURE SUPPLIED

Thuynsma said for the fourth annual expo, the advice office decided to focus on skills development careers. He outlined the institutions participating in the expo, including wholesale and retail SETA, construction SETA, security SETA, various services SETAs, local government SETA, and IT SETA. Additionally, he said colleges such as the South African Law School, FoodBev, College of Cape Town, and False Bay College, will also be present, as well as Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and Legal Aid.

‘’We believe that our economy needs skilled people. We do not necessarily spend too much energy around people who want to go to the university for academic studies. We rather want to spend time with young people who want to have a technical skill, because with a technical skill, you can start your own business. Therefore, we looked at who would be the best people then to invite to Mitchell's Plain to enable young people to make decisions across the vast spectrum of skilled jobs in the market.’’

‘’We will have at least 12 of them out of the 21 [SETA’s] who have confirmed [as of Monday] that they will be attending, which includes construction from petrochemicals and chemicals, to I.T, to engineering, banking space, finance, and food manufacturing, wholesale and retail, and the mining sector,’’ he added.

Thunysma says bus company, Golden Arrow, will also be part of the expo.

‘’Golden Arrow will be there to recruit future employees because they have vacancies that they want to fill and they have decided to partner with the Mitchell’s Plain Advice Office from the career exposition going forward, where they will then come and advertise on a regular basis their vacancies that they have. But this one specifically, they want to recruit people who are interested to be bus drivers and who are interested to join the engineering space at Golden Arrow. So we hope that young people who are interested in those fields will then come to the Career Exhibition and have a conversation with Golden Arrow,'' said Jerimia Thuynsma, Project Coordinator at Mitchell’s Plain Community Advice and Development Project.

The career exhibition will be held at the Portland Indoor Centre, situated on the corner of Merrydale & Hazeldene Avenue, on Thursday, 15 May, from 10a.m.

For more information, contact Mitchell’s Plain Community Advice and Development Project spokesperson Romano Kock on (021) 392-2000

Bush Radio will also broadcast live from 9a.m until 2p.m

 

Done By: Mitchum George