• Christel House will donate its multimedia centre to BEST College.
• The centre was originally donated to Christel House in 2016.
• BEST College is a non-profit school with 200 learners who will benefit from the 20-seater multimedia centre.

Christel House in Cape Town, a school that claims it “transforms the lives of impoverished children” will be donating a 20-seater multimedia centre to BEST College. BEST College is a non-profit school of 200 learners said to be in desperate need of the multimedia centre.

The multimedia centre being donated was initially donated to Christel House by the MTN SA Foundation six years ago. The funds for this centre were raised through a half-marathon that was held in 2016 in Johannesburg, according to a report from IT Web at the time.

“After adding value to the education of our Grade R – 12 learners for six years, the time has come to upgrade our multimedia centre facility. So, we paid our facility forward to BEST College in Observatory and helped them install the computers, upskilled their IT manager and introduced the children to their new facility,” explained chief executive officer of Christel House, Adri Marais.

“A local IT-certification company then stepped forward and will now be offering structured ICT training at the centre on an ongoing basis,” Marais adds.

There is a dire need to facilitate and enable ICT skills development locally as employers are increasingly looking abroad for those skills. The reason they are doing that boils down to the investment  required to upskill new hires being far too high.

If there are initiatives which expose youngsters to ICT fields early and provide opportunities to pursue education along that path, perhaps that will reverse that trend.

MTN SA Foundation’s general manager Kusile Mtunzi-Hairwadzi commended Christel House on its donation.

“We are grateful to Christel House for their donation to BEST College; it truly underlines the holistic approach we’re taking to use technology and a connected life to empower society, and their donation will undoubtedly provide new opportunities and a chance at a better life for learners in this competitive 21st century,” the GM said.

“For us, the key to a sustainable future for South Africa means broadening access to information and communications technology, while promoting the adoption of digital and ICT skills of children in classrooms across the country,” Mtunzi-Hairwadzi concluded.