In his recent Green Paper on Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande reminds us that, through high level training across the disciplines, higher education equips people with the necessary knowledge, skills and values to play a wide range of social roles and to become effective citizens. “Through research and the production of knowledge, higher education provides society with the capacity to innovate, adapt and advance.” Overall the aim is to “level the playing fields” for all South Africans in access availability to university, FET and other tertiary education facilities. In the context of FET entities, the goal is a tenfold increase in 20 years. The scope for CEFA to grow is self-evident.

On 17^th January CEFA launched its Social Auxiliary Worker training programme, which makes it possible for individual learners (and not just groups) to qualify.  Initiated in seven areas, this programme gives a whole new group of learners the opportunity to obtain this much needed qualification. One week of orientation has been followed by two weeks of theoretical training. Stay tuned to our next Newsletters to see how our groups fare.

In CEFA’s training of Social Auxiliary Workers (SAWs), much has been done to ensure that learners obtain maximum benefit from mentoring and coaching support. The biggest challenge however still seems to be the availability of Mentors.  The dedication of Social Worker Mentors is high; more needs to be done to help them in this vital role. CEFA especially wishes to thank our Mentors for the great job they have done with our learners – and for the huge contribution they make to the social service sector of this country.

Last month we reported on donor funding from the private sector, which has made it possible for us to give more learners the opportunity to attain a better life. In particular, we wish to reiterate our thanks to Investec, SECO, the Rupert Foundation, the D G Murray Trust (including 10 individuals from the CASE organisation sponsored on 17^th January), businesses and individuals for their contributions. We thank you for your support and we pledge to work even harder to attain a better life for all. We look forward to a 2012 in which the value of such funding will become ever more clearly demonstrable.

Underpinning all that CEFA does lies the basic need to communicate with the world at large. Our Newsletters have become a regular monthly feature. The growing number of visitors to our website has shown the growth of interest in what we do and what we offer. In January 2012 our website has received 1 902 visits; in January 2011 there were only 805 visits.