We had a great response from Jani de Bruin's interview on Tuesday with Cobus Bester, above, anchor of the morning current affairs programme Monitor on Radio Sonder Grense (Radio Without Borders).
The interview was on our need for more fun and young science explainers, like those seen below, particularly those who praat die taal, and how this might be a win-win situation for matriculants who have nothing to look forward to after school finished at the end of 2007.
We are holding our next training session in February, and this offers people a chance to earn a little transport money while volunteering. More importantly, it taps them into the networks of the employed world, and builds their skills and confidence.
But much needs to be done to encourage life skills among students who made it through the education system by doing as little as possible.
A similar report on the need for explainers appeared on Thursday in the Vukani newspaper, edited by Vukile Sonandzi. Vukani (which means Wake Up!) is an English and isiXhosa weekly newspaper, one of the Cape Community newspaper titles owned by Independent Newspapers and serving the Khayelitsha - Langa - Gugulethu communities of Cape Town.
Sadly, floor manager Busi Maqubela reports that training began from the moment the conversations started .... at 10 pm. Or 7 am. Hint to job-hunters: try to make the first contact during office hours.
The next problem was that people hadn't even read the article properly or done their homework, and some of them were quite agressive towards her.
Another handy hint to job-hunters: try to introduce yourself by first name, surname and region or suburb when you cold-call someone. And explain why you are phoning. Maybe even apologise for interrupting someone's schedule?
Beginning a conversation with ''so what's this MTN thing?'' to a complete stranger who has the power of hiring and firing you is NOT going to go over well.
And when the employer says something like ''tell me what you know about the MTN Sciencentre,'' it is not a clever idea to respond resentfully with ''I don't know, your name is on this, YOU tell ME.''
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