Giving Wings focuses on communication

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Giving Wings 2The Giving Wings youth development programme also facilitates group workshops to give participants the opportunity to sharpen their skills among peers, and assess their progress in a practical setting. (Giving Wings)

Giving Wings – as the name suggests – was set up to help young people fly.

A skills development organisation, Giving Wings has designed a programme aimed at providing young people with the knowledge, guidance and confidence they need to succeed in an ever-more competitive working environment.

As part of its approach, Giving Wings identified the lack of communication skills as one of the major challenges young South Africans face when trying to find employment and grow in their careers. To address this, the organisation offers coaching in public speaking, presentation, business conduct and writing skills to promote work readiness.

Founded by award-winning public speaker Kefilwe Morobane and business analyst Thato Mboweni, Giving Wings is devoted to giving back to society and, in doing so, has focused the bulk of its efforts on Olievenhoutbosch, a township in Centurion, in Gauteng.

Mboweni, the director, says the objective of the organisation’s youth development programme is “to empower young and effective communicators… I believe that everyone is a communicator, but not everyone is an effective communicator.”

Through its partnership with the Olieven Development Association, it facilitates workshops to hone people’s verbal and written communication skills.

Watch Giving Wings Youth Development Programme in action:

GROWTH AMONG PEERS

The Giving Wings youth development programme also facilitates group workshops to give participants the opportunity to sharpen their skills among peers, and assess their progress in a practical setting. The workshops also help them overcome the initial fears of speaking in public.

“One of the greatest fears in this world is the fear of public speaking,” said Morobane, the managing director of Giving Wings, at the 2015 Giving Wings school speech contest, held in Olievenhoutbosch.

That event was the culmination of a four-week programme the organisation had run for Grade 11 pupils that gave them the opportunity to display their new-found skills in front of their friends, parents and teachers.

At the close of the event, Mboweni said she was “proud to see young students flourishing, flying. Express themselves in a way that they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to had we not done this… Giving Wings is about giving wings and I think we have really achieved that today.”