The purpose of the camp is to prepare school leavers with skills to do a job, but also the ability to cope in the work environment.
Implemented by miniMAX a Youth Development, accommodates youngsters from grades 4 to 11, selected from three primary schools and two high schools in disadvantaged areas in the Johannesburg area.
The revised five-stage programme includes identifying the right participants with a passion for arts and for their future, a week-long boot camp, applying their learnings when they are back in their own environment at home and at school – along with additional coaching and mentoring sessions, recognition of their achievements, and evaluation and assessment of the programme’s efficacy.
In addition, 12 Diepsloot youngsters were invited at the Boot Camp through a partnership with Chef Hezron Louw and his food catering company, Sumting Fresh.
A food truck is operating at the camp, providing nourishing and tasty meals for the learners and the facilitators, while also providing on-the-job catering training for the 12 high school learners.
Shanda Paine, Group CSI Manager for Tsogo Sun says: “The focus of the programme has always been to add far more to youngsters’ lives than just learning skills in the performing arts.
We re-looked at how we could use all that arts teaches and have enhanced it to have a greater impact on young learners’ futures. Our youth are often hampered in their efforts to join the mainstream of economic growth because of inadequacies in the preparation they are getting to take on their responsibilities as productive members of society in the workplace, and lack of job readiness is a real issue for thousands of youngsters around the country.
This revised curriculum of the Tsogo Sun Arts Academy programme aims to address that issue.”
Various companies and organizations are involved in the boot camp.
