Letter to the Editor: Where are our young, middle-class professional people?

Theo Krynauw, Sparklekids

This year is the 10th anniversary of Sparklekids and over the years we've seen quite a few engineers, teachers, nurses and lawyers, all from Zwelihle, graduating. All of them have since left Hermanus, probably never to return. How is this not a sure recipe for disaster in an area that is labelled as one of the most racially segregated in our country?

Our self-supporting, middle-class professional young people… all gone! How do we think we are going to have a future for ourselves and our children in this wonderful town if we keep it only for the privileged few, relying on whales and wines to buy us a few more years.Little Europe in Africa... Think again. And please bear with me for a few more seconds.

We have to find a way of authentically changing all of this, and what the past 10 years have taught me is that there is only one profession that can take a young person living in a shack to earning R20 000 p/m in four years, and that is obtaining a solid B-Education Degree.

This is why we started Hermanus Varsity. And this year is the first year that we have an intake of almost 30 educational students. Imagine if we could make Hermanus the destination of choice for young people who want to study and become great school teachers. Building life skills and coping mechanisms into this course to deal with this most important but demanding profession in an ever-changing world.

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 7).