To play a part in supporting the Micro Focus INSPIRE program in South Africa, the team’s local distributor, Axiz, recently donated and delivered a state-of-the-art wireless printer and scanner to the site’s charity partner – The Frida Hartley Shelter for abused women and children (FHS). The donation will support delivery of a programme designed by Micro Focus colleagues to help women at the shelter upskill and find employment.
Allyson Towle, Marketing Manager and INSPIRE Ambassador for Micro Focus South Africa, said: “Micro Focus South Africa partnered with FHS at the start of this year with the aim of providing a coaching, mentoring and computer skills program for the women who rely on the charity to help rebuild their lives. Through the program, our goal is to help the women find meaningful work and earn a living to support themselves and their children. The program is a three-phase project and has taken considerable collaboration and team effort to get it off the ground. Our distributor, Axiz, was keen to support the program and recently donated a top of the range printer to FHS, which will not only help support the women during the upskilling program, but will also be a much-needed resource for the charity to use in their day-to-day operations.”
One part of the program is dedicated to coaching, which is run by Jo Chalmers, Enterprise Account Executive, Hybrid IT/ADM, a qualified John Maxwell coach. Jo runs one-hour face-to-face coaching courses every fortnight with a group of women from FHS to help them harness leadership skills. The second part of the program is dedicated to mentoring, and currently 10 women from the charity are taking part and receive mentoring by seven employee volunteers. They use WhatsApp to stay connected, and mentors provide guidance and advice across a range of life areas – including tips for prepping for job interviews and tips on how to enhance their CVs.
The third part of the program is focused on computer skills development, and Axiz’s donation contributed to this initiative. Allyson explained that due to COVID-19, the enablement sessions were delivered via Microsoft Teams – and to get started laptops were needed for the women to join in and take part.
“We needed several laptops for the women, it just wouldn’t work if a group sat together using one laptop,” said Allyson. “Fortunately the charity received a donation of 10 laptops, however they were totally scrubbed. Seph Robbertse, Sales Specialist, Application Security, together with volunteers in his team, secured the licences needed to restore the laptops and managed to add all the necessary operating system requirements so that they can be used.”
With the laptops in good working condition, Axiz then stepped in to donate a printer and scanner so that worksheets or documents the women received during their training could be printed or scanned to support their learning.
“We have now started delivering the computer skills program. At in August volunteers delivered two sessions – Build a CV and a Job Hunting Workshop. We are starting with the basics and upcoming sessions will include guidance on putting together a PowerPoint presentation and creating spreadsheets. The training sessions were created and led by Vaughn Young, ADM Account Executive. It’s a fantastic team effort to make a positive difference – together with each other and also with the support of Axiz.”
