WHAT ABOUT AFTER SCHOOL?

This is the most difficult question we are asked!  Throughout their time at KGVI the students are prepared for their futures.  However trying to find a job in a market already flooded with non-disabled people provides an almost insurmountable problem to anyone with a disability.  For this reason senior students are given some counselling and work experience opportunities. 

• For the more academic we now have an arrangement with a local private school which has agreed to take our two top students for ‘A’ levels (the final 2 years of secondary schooling).  Already 2 students have passed their A levels and another 2 are presently half way through their course.  We even have 3 students who have been accepted into scholarship programmes to American universities!  Admittedly these are all Liyana band members but we have hopes to extend this opportunity to our brightest students in the future.
• In addition to this the Centre now runs an apprenticeship programme.  We try to take three school leavers per year to work within a department gaining experience and new practical skills.  Following this programme we now employ several of our school leavers: three in the school, four in administration, five in the school teaching arts, two in the kitchen, one in the maintenance department and one in the garden. 

 

• Over the past few years several students have been assisted to find employment in factories, hair salons, offices, craft centres and even a safari camp.  Some of the students have become employed by family or become self-employed as the young man who set up his own chicken project and now supplies the Centre with chickens.  Another student is making a living making coffins!  One of our greatest successes has been the hearing impaired student who won a scholarship to a university in America and has now returned and is teaching at KGVI!  We also have an ex student who went through the University of Zimbabwe and is now employed at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
• We are now putting more emphasis on our vocational programme so that our more practical students will leave with marketable or self sustainable skills, for instance back yard hairdressers are always in demand.

 

Deaf students on building course