At the beginning of 2021, CapaCiTi Digital Career Accelerator launched the #LoanFree campaign as an offer to ease the difficulties faced by graduates in the harsh job market. CapaCiTi announced this offer to immediately cancel the contingent student loans held by its 2018, 2019 and 2020 cohorts.
CapaCiTi Digital Career Accelerator is the skills development arm of the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative (CiTi), a Non-Profit Company striving to build a future-fit, inclusive society through technology and innovation. The Digital Career Accelerator recognised that companies around the world are struggling to navigate the ongoing pandemic and certain industries have shut down. Those that are operating are doing so at limited capacity and have put a hiring freeze in place. Thus impacting CapaCiTi graduates and their ability to meet their financial obligations.
It’s been a few months since CapaCiTi launched #LoanFree, a bold bid to ease the difficulties faced by graduates in the current job climate. This is what some of the graduates who were part of #LoanFree have to say.
Aphiwe Diniso, who works at Sanlam as a Management Information Systems Analyst, details that before joining CapaCiTi she was unemployed and CapaCiTi allowed her to be a part of the BBDS programme where she learnt soft skills, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Aphiwe states that being a part of the programme was also a good learning curve as it challenged her thinking, and allowed her to learn new things while improving her presentation skills. When asked how it feels to have her loan cancelled she explained that “it feels good because I do not have to worry about having to pay back the money I owed. It makes a difference in my life now that I won’t be paying the debt because it means that my disposable income will not be affected as the loan instalments would have decreased my disposable income”.
Benjamin Ontiretse Mogale currently works at Mosabi Company, and he says that the CapaCiTi programme was one of the best programmes for him. He wishes it was a permanent role because it afforded him the opportunity to connect with different people from different cultures and learn how to work in team settings. Being a part of CapaCiTi broadened his career prospects and he is grateful for that.
CapaCiTi graduates are upskilled to be able to find employment through completing the programmes and this is due to CapaCiTi’s vision to enable inclusive growth of the digital economy by ensuring a supply pipeline of future-fit, skilled employees with relevant digital skills matched to industry demand. Lebohang Sicilia Mosia was unemployed before completing the Information Technology Technical Support in the 2019-2020 programme. She states that she is grateful because “it was a rocky road but finally the CapaCiTi team managed to secure me an internship in these difficult times as we’ve been battling with Covid-19”.
Aphiwe Diniso concludes with a word of advice and gratitude, “to other alumni, they must continue upskilling themselves and not only rely on what they have learnt at CiTi. To the future students, joining CapaCiTi is one of the best decisions that they can take, the tech and soft skills provided there will help them build their careers and they must not join for the stipend but the skills. To the CapaCiTi team, I am grateful for the opportunity that you offered me; I was unemployed and depressed before joining the programme. The time I spent there helped me to regain my confidence and also allowed me to learn. No words can describe how grateful I am for the support that the team provided us with.
CapaCiTi has a dedicated team that supports you throughout the process and cares about its candidates. If you are ready to take the first step to your digital career, join our database by following this link.