In 2023, The Townships Project entered into a partnership with Property Point, a Kagiso Township business incubator. Property Point is an initiative of Growthpoint Properties, which is the largest commercial real estate company in South Africa. With its relationship to Growthpoint, Property Point has deep experience in business and marketing and a direct understanding of the need for skilled tradespeople and property services. Property Point’s focus is on unlocking opportunities for small and medium business in the property sector.
In exploring opportunities, The Townships Project settled on a plumbing-incubator which is developing the trade and business skills of plumbers. This initiative includes a particular effort to support several female entrepreneurs in this male-dominated field. Our first contribution was to share the cost of purchasing and fully-equipping a mobile plumbing truck/workshop. Beyond simple transportation, this resource gives programme participants efficient access to tools and on-truck supplies. As a result, the plumbers are better able to complete more work, develop their client base and build their businesses.
During 2024, The Townships Project contributed to the purchase of a lift and a large screen for teaching and meeting purposes. These resources have improved access to lessons on branding, marketing, records keeping, compliance and other business skills. An audit at the end of March, 2024 indicated progress and a need to increase confidence and technical knowledge amongst the female-owned businesses. We look forward to improvements in those areas as we continue to engage in this project.
On January 25, 2024, Martha Deacon had the opportunity to visit the plumbers onsite to learn about their training program as well as to inspect the vehicle purchased in 2023. Just some of the challenges facing the female-owned plumbing businesses: lack of technical understanding of the scope of their work, requiring improvement in assessment, costing and supervision to allow them to operate independently.
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In January 2024, Martha Deacon had the opportunity to visit Kgabo Cars, an onsite mechanics training centre in Soshunguve Townships. During that visit, Martha asked the centre's director, Dr. Boshomone what his first priority would be to improve the training. His answer: access to a Virtual Reality training system of NUDLE. Over the next few months, the three parties worked together to make that a reality.
