Housing in Southern Africa June 2016

The NHBRC, an agency of the Department of Human Settlements, is on a journey, fuelled by the need to galvanise the country’s youth and create opportunities that will motivate, inspire and change the lives of youth around the country. Over the years, the NHBRC’s training has been underpinned by a level of excellence and more recently there have been many accolades for its Youth Brigade Programme training course.

youth

Abbey Chikane

T he Youth Brigade Programme and training is a collaborative effort among the Department of Human Settlements, the NHBRC, provincial departments, state entities aswell as local municipalities to train, mentor and create work opportuni- ties for the youth. A critical part of the programme is to identify suit- able large scale government housing projects and then partner withmajor sector players, who have the capacity to mentor and oversee the youth- training on site. The NHBRC plays a key role in ensuring that the youth programme rolls out smoothly and efficiently and is supportive in training 2 000 youth participants each year. The

pioneering programme aims to train 10 000 youth, capacitating the sector in order to deliver 1,5million housing opportunities by 2019. Abbey Chikane, the hands on NHBRC chairperson of Council, has been at the state regulatory author- ity since his appointment last year by Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu. And, the NHBRC is now pioneering the industry’s trans- formation with innovative training that weaves social and economic responsibility into the fabric of the built environment. Chikane is widely recognised as an astute businessman and his breadth of knowledge has influenced and changed operations, in order to

ensure sustainability and a clean au- dit by 2017. FellowCouncil members bring a depth of understanding about the organisation and appropriate programmes. He says that in Minister Sisulu’s budget speech she outlined vari- ous social housing and training programmes for the youth, women, military veterans and people with disabilities. There are 101 Catalytic projects in all nine Provinces, with 94 ready for implementation and which have a combined value of over R300 billion. This will create and sustain more than 20 000 jobs in the construction sector and the housing supply chain. The National Department of

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