Successful e-literacy classes equip underprivileged youth with skills, opportunities

By Tino Kreutzer

After many months of preparation, IkamvaYouth’s Operation Fikelela finally kicked off on an early Saturday morning on 17 September, 2005. Since then, 20 students aged 15 to 16 have been trained in weekly sessions— and made a giant leap in their lives: substantive computer literacy skills in South Africa’s very competitive job market will hopefully lead these learners with big steps away from a deadlock world of massive unemployment and poverty.

Operation Fikelela (operation access) uses a distinct curriculum which was developed by several IkamvaYouth volunteers. Since the learners drawn from the Khayelitsha Township of eastern Cape Town had absolutely zero exposure to the world of computers, many of the available teaching guides could only be used as advisory documents.

Ikamva’s new curriculum will be soon be available in a Wiki-format to ensure further improvement and serve other ICT-training NGO’s as an asset. In the initial ten sessions, in-depth classes on operating systems, word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software, as well as introductory sessions on the information society and free open source software are included in Ikamva’s eliteracy training.

The beginning of computer training classes at the Nazeema Isaacs Library in Khayelitsha commenced when Tino Kreutzer, exchange student from International University Bremen, joined Ikamva as a volunteer intern in September. Since then, the sustainability of Operation Fikelela has been further ensured when computer training veteran and Xhosa speaker Lundi Klaas Michael joined the program.

Classes are held in English, but, as most learners speak Xhosa as
their mother tongue, Xhosa instructions have proven to be
more comprehensive for some students.

After several Awards for Operation Fikelela and IkamvaYouth already lauded the importance of e-literacy training in South Africa’s Townships, the future plans of rolling out the volunteer -based training all over the region and country will hopefully be continued to draw international as well as local attention.