Johannesburg - The Ford Motor Company has committed to investing $750 000 (R11.6 million) over five years in the establishment of a new job training and entrepreneurial development centre in Pretoria.
The new Ford Resource and Engagement Centre at Ford’s vehicle manufacturing plant in Silverton, the first outside the US, will train and assist about 200 people a year to find a job or start their own small business. The investment forms part of a global expansion of the concept since the establishment of the first centre by Ford in Detroit in 2013.
Ford said it had partnered in the venture with Future Families, a non-profit organisation established in 2001 with R120 000 in funding from Ford, that has provided assistance to orphans and vulnerable children and people infected and affected by HIV/Aids in South Africa.
Jim Vella, the president of fund and community services at the Ford Motor Company, said yesterday that the launch of the new centre marked a major step forward in Ford’s journey to help build a better world.
Vella said it would open in October and Ford had plans to open further centres in other countries. He said the investment in the establishment of the centre formed part of an overall $4m investment that Ford would make on the African continent over the next five years. The goal was to help make people’s lives better and, at its core, the concept was a community driven programme of services that addressed basic needs, economic growth and the quality of life.
He said the first focus at the centre would be on job training, one of the most urgent needs in communities today, because if a person had a job, they were able to sustain themselves.
“It’s not a hand-out, it’s a hand up. It’s not about writing cheques, but about working with the community to identify the needs, and we provide the services that allow them to break that cycle of poverty that we see all too often around the world,” he said.
Jeff Nemeth, the president and chief executive of the sub-Saharan Africa region for the Ford Motor Company, said there were three pillars to Ford’s business: a strong business, great products and a better world.
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Nemeth said within its better world pillar, it aimed to serve its shareholders and earn a return, which then enabled the company to invest back into the community, create social value and create opportunities for people around its plants. He said Ford had about 20 projects in its “better world” programme in South Africa.
Penny Learmonth, the founder and executive director of Future Families, said her organisation was celebrating the next step of the journey with Ford that had resulted in them working with 10 000 orphans and vulnerable children since 2001 in six offices.
Learmonth said sustainability and youth unemployment were two major challenges facing communities, because figures from Statistics SA revealed that a shocking 32.6 percent of youth were unemployed.
“We cannot ignore that reality on our doorstep. It was a real opportunity to take the Ford Resource and Engagement Centre and expand on it,” she said.
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