Palabora Foundation spends millions wisely
2008-05-19
Learners at Namakgale’s Leboneng Education Centre now have access to probably the best training kitchen in the whole of South Africa, plus a host of other new facilities. The Palabora Foundation has been busy spending money allocated by Palabora Mining Company last year to mark its 20th anniversary. The R20 million, earmarked for capital projects, has been wisely distributed to benefit the community as much as possible – not just in Namakgale but also in Lulekani. Projects to assist other areas are also in the pipeline.
Although many new buildings have risen recently, the kitchen at Leboneng takes pride of place. Designed in consultation with a major industrial supplier, the kitchen encompasses state of the art industrial equipment and cleverly thought-out features. According to Chris Kruger, the Foundation’s project leader, the kitchen is second to none. “Everything in our training kitchen is exactly what our learners will find in a real commercial kitchen. They will have hands-on experience of everything, even the dishwasher. A lot of training kitchens leave out the dishwasher because it’s expensive, but then the learners have to work out how to use it just from looking at pictures. In our kitchen we’ve included the dishwasher so that they can feel confident when they go to work in a real kitchen – they will have seen one before. We want to produce the kind of learners that the industry wants”.
The state of the art kitchen, which contains more than R1 million of industrial equipment, incorporates dozens of great ideas, from floors that slope and include drains to make washing easy, to the glass-sided facilitator’s office that allows a full view of the entire kitchen area. Other great ideas include the nearby shower block with lockers to allow learners to take a shower and change clothes between preparing food and serving it; the large windows that let in the light if Eskom is load shedding; the basins by each entrance to the kitchen so that regular hand washing is easy.
The same attention to detail has gone into every one of the new buildings to ensure that these facilities will not only do their job well but will be around for many years to come.
In Lulekani’s Rixile Education Centre, the Hi-Kurile Craft Cooperative has been given a facelift and two training rooms house the new TechnoKidz programme, PROTEC’s little brother for grade 8 and 9 learners. PROTEC (the Programme for Technological Careers) has been one of the Foundation’s great success stories and it is hoped that TechnoKidz will follow in its footsteps. TechnoKidz is also being run at Leboneng and the two centres have identical rows of brand new computers installed and already being used. The major funders of the Phalaborwa PROTEC and TechnoKidz programmes are Palabora Mining Company, Foskor, Sasol Nitro and Lepelle Northern Water.
Other beneficiaries of the Palabora Foundation’s windfall include the toy library and training facility at Bambanani Early Learning Outreach Trust, the training rooms for the sewing programme and the new Business Development Centre. In each case, the buildings and equipment have been designed to smooth workflow and maximise the usage of the facilities.
Those hoping to make the most of the training facilities can contact the Leboneng Education Centre in Namakgale on 015 769 5055 or the Rixile Education Centre in Lulekani on 015 783 0013.
: ends :
Run with assistance from the European Union