“Building vibrant, equitable and sustainable rural communities”
ARC, VOPI, Roodeplaat
Chief Executive Officer of the ARC, Dr S Moephuli
President of SANACO, Mr L Bale
President of IEFA, Ms Janet Landey
President of NAFU SA, Mr M Matlala
Deputy Director General, Dr Moshe Swarts
Deputy Director General, Ms Leona Archary
Representatives of organized agriculture
Executives and Senior Managers of the ARC
Senior Management of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform
Agricultural Para-Professionals
Ms Zondi, Mother of the Late Lungisile Zuma
Ms Kgotlhang, Family member of the late Thato Ditoto
NARYSEC Choir
Honourable guest
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am indeed very honoured to be the first ever graduation ceremony of the agricultural Para-Professionals skilled through the collaboration between the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and the Agricultural Research Council.
The Department has established a conducive working relationship with the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) and its various institutions with regards to the development of specific knowledge projects which resulted into the signing of the Memorandum of agreement in 2011.
One of the first project for which a service level agreement with Branch Social, Technical, Rural Livelihood and institutional Facilitation (STRIF) was singed, was to train newly recruited candidate Agricultural Para-Professionals (APPDPs) during the 2011/12 financial year.
The project comprised of an introductory module for a broader development and training course for candidate Agricultural Para-Professional. Young people were recruited from the rural areas to support rural development initiatives.
The project enables 9 groups 90 candidate APPDPs from 9 Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) sites to interact with highly experienced ARC trainers and researchers for a period of 5 days at the ARC campus (here at Roodeplaat) and the infruitech at Stellenbosch.
The APPDPs developed knowledge and learnt basic skills relating to food gardening. The 5 day module was then followed up by a programme of 6 site visits to their respective CRDP sites by the ARC staff to enable ongoing experiential learning and technical; support over a period of a year.
This initial project has been completed not without very hard work from both the department staff side, as well as ARC. There are many touching stories that can be shared as both the department and ARC learnt in the process of implementation, which only strengthen the commitment. The people who worked hardest were these young APPDPs.
The course was accredited and accordingly those who successfully completed and passed the assessment will today be receiving their certificate. Others for various reasons might not have completed the full period or not been able to do the assessments, they will receive Certificate of attendance.
764 APPDPs participated in the training project and 56 graduated Cum Laude. These Graduates received between 90% and 95%. We are also honoured to have amongst these graduates, people with disabilities which are the outstanding achievement, especially in the month in which that we acknowledge the importance of people with disabilities. These graduates are truly a proudly South-African example of “Nothing about without us”
I am also honouring the mother and the family of two graduates who have passed on. We thank them for being here today to receive the graduation certificates.
The Department and ARC have already singed additional Service Level agreement to take forward this successful development programme, and also ensure that these APPDPs will be given an opportunity to supervise other 5 recruits from their areas who will be given all required inputs (seeds for 2 season, fertilizer, tool, fencing, Hosepipe, shade net, water wheelbarrows, 5000 litre tanks) and who will again support 3 additional household gardens each. In this manner development is “taken forward”, and sustainability and job opportunity are created.
A new pool of recruits will then enter in the next year a formal accredited training programme. Those APPDPs who excel will also be given an opportunity to enter advanced programme programme in terms of five year Agricultural Para-Professional Development programme that was developed as a process of advancing phase: phase I the basic vegetables training programme, Phase 2 an advanced vegetable production training course and Phase III of trainers. This will ensure long-term sustainability of the programme and enriching and strengthening knowledge and experience.
A pipeline of technologies will be developed by ARC directly linked to the Para-Professional vegetables gardens to address the challenges faced in specific climatic zones, enrich the course material establishing the full value chain including agri-village markets.
In conclusion allow me to use the words of our beloved Nelson Mandela in saying “Make every home, every shack or rickety structures a centre of learning”
I am delighted to inform you that some of these Graduates are already producing vegetables for their own use and selling their produce to their communities.
It is my wish that this training project will graduate our people from poverty, skill them to become business women and men of standing who can contribute to the socio-economic transformation of especially our rural society.
I thank you.
