I believe in Africa

The FWC has made us all think about South Africa, its people and Africa. In the same way, I have been thinking about Africa and the vivid image that has always been with me.......... .

 I once sat and watched a young boy, he was poor and from a depressed background, building a helicopter from bits of wire and pieces of metal he had cut from a coffee tin. This was no ordinary helicopter, for when it was completed and he pushed it along the ground in the way that many African children play, the rotor moved through a set of intricate wire gears attached to the wheels. In engineering terms, the child had built universal joints using the most basic of tools and material; a marvel.


As I looked at this toy, I realized that with the right teaching and resources, this poor, uneducated African child could be anything he wanted to be; an engineer, a scientist, a doctor or a teacher and in turn teach thousands of children from the same social background. But, as I have learnt during my years in agriculture, foreign investment and development, it is often not enough to teach a child or a single person. He or she is part of a social structure and until the structure as a whole accepts the need for education and entrepreneurship, that single child may never reach his or her full potential.

The boy and his helicopter were with me when my research team and I created the “Fowl for Africa” concept in 1993/4. At the time, many rural communities were dependent on “spent” hens from the large poultry farms for their existence. An outbreak of New Castle Disease wiped out millions of chicks and “spent” hens were destroyed. In order to avert malnutrition, I used “old” indigenous fowl breeds such as the Leghorn, Indian Gamer and Rhode Island Red in community fowl projects. This was so successful that the “Fowls for Africa” concept was born and registered. In 2010, this work still continues at the Agricultural Research Council’s Irene Campus.

The boy and his helicopter were with me when, as director of the country’s Reconstruction and Development Programme, I became involved in a project to eradicate “alien” vegetation from river ways and agricultural land in South Africa. The wood was used, and is still used, in the manufacture of charcoal, toys, utensils and it is mixed into cement and other binding agents to form building panels. This project continues today and is one of the shining successes of the Reconstruction and Development of the country after the democratic elections in 1994.

As General Manger in charge of foreign investment into the Gauteng Province, my team and I were approached in 2002 with a request from an international mining house to seek employment for hundreds of gold miner that were to be retrenched in an area knows as Mogale. The picture of the boy and his helicopter were right there when we proposed the development of a chrysanthemum and rose growing farm for export to the international market. The Green Gold Project provided an income to many of the retrenched gold mining families.

The most recent recollection of the boy and his helicopter are interwoven into an article that I published in the Professional Management Review (pmr) in 2009 (Vol. 20, issue 4, pg 17). A young African school-leaver is looking for a job but has no skills training, no mobile phone or transport, little money and often has no support structure from which to operate. The youth also does not know how to apply and what to say during an interview and as a result, will more often than not accept any job that is available. The article proposes a new concept in employment where young people are screened for an aptitude and then employed on the strength of the aptitude and not on their experience in a field as is the norm in many countries and organizations. Once in the employ of the company, a training fund will assist the company to train the person into a particular profession. The concept solves the problem of skills training and experience. Young people also have the opportunity to move into a support structure, receive training and gain experience.

I have travelled widely in Africa and the lasting impression is one of a continent that had everything and gives it away. It has gold that should be turned in fine African jewellery, it has sugar and chocolate that should bear the stamp of an African company. African restaurants should grace the pages of Vogue and clothing should be worn by the best dressed models in Paris and New York. I believe in Africa and I believe in the boy with the helicopter.

I lie and work in Africa because it affords me the opportunity to accomplish that which has been in my mind since I watched that African child build a universal joint using a piece of wire and a bit of metal cut from a discarded coffee jar.