The teenage children of council employees spent the day at the Metro Centre, where they learned about what their parents do, during the City's Bring a Child to Work day.

Council officials took the time to explain their work to the visiting learners
(Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)

IT'S a cold and wintry Thursday morning and the corridors at the Metro Centre are quiet and chilly. And then, footsteps are heard in the distance; suddenly the quiet passageways warm up and resonate with laughter and talking.

Wearing school uniforms of various colours, some 73 high school learners come into view, excitement on their teenage faces. They smile while being escorted by their parents, who are council employees, to a meeting point at the council chamber wing.

While wait for proceedings to begin, they are joined by a group of avid junior councillors and members of the children's council. In all, about 100 schoolchildren are milling around the room.

The learners converged at the Metro Centre as part of the City's initiative to get young people involved in and informed about council operations, and what some of their parents get up to during the day.

Flowing from the annual Take a Girl Child to Work Day - a trademark campaign of cellphone network company Cell C - the City hosted its own Bring a Child to Work Day on Thursday, 29 May. The broader Cell C campaign was initiated countrywide some five years ago; companies have to register to participate.

The Cell C campaign was originally tailored to demystify the male-dominated workplace, with the company only involving girl children. It has, over the years, had a dramatic effect on the lives of about 350 000 young South African girls. The idea comes from the United States, where it has been up and running since the 1990s.

Every child
"This year we wanted things to be a bit different and give every child the opportunity to spend a day at a workplace," said Brenda Andrews, the City's manager for citizenship. "The only difference is that this is their parent's workplace."

Schoolchildren were made to feel at home in the council chambers
(Photo: Enoch Lehung, City of Johannesburg)

Bring a Child to Work Day is designed to expand skills development programmes for the youth, and expose young people to career opportunities in the government. It aims to eliminate gender disparities in the workplace.

Despite this and South Africa's government policy of supporting gender equality, there are still disparities in income and career opportunities.

For Joburg, this initiative is a starting point to include its young citizens in running the City, "and what a better way to start than with our employees' children", Andrews noted.

She said that the campaign was geared at exposing those children to their parents' daily routines, while they learn "about other things in council". "We have to teach our children these things at a young age. If they learn more they will want to know more in future, and they will participate more ... Our focus is the youth, and we are having progress."

The City's campaign was themed It starts with me and had targeted all children from grades eight to 12, both boys and girls. "Our project was mainly about exposing these kids to the many career opportunities that lie ahead for them in the City," Andrews said.

Departments visited
The learners were divided into groups and taken to visit different departments, where they were told of the various career opportunities. Five of them, all from different schools, visited the department of communication, in which they had shown interest.

Nthatisi Modingoane, the City's communication officer, spoke about the department, and encouraged the learners to consider careers in that field. "My job is full of many challenges ... You have to have a passion for this job, always be informed, and know that you will always be a servant."

After the short talk, Mamati Gumbi, Nadia Nightingale and Mbali Mkhonto said they were taking a few lessons home. "We have learned that everything one does, requires passion," the girls said enthusiastically.

Other groups visited the departments of finance and geo-informatics; the Office of the Speaker, Nkele Ntingane; and the Joburg Innovation and Knowledge Exchange (Jike), among other departments.

The entire day was characterised by learning and experiencing, at first hand, that knowledge, if planted in the right "soil" can go a long way, said Dumisani Mbatha, the youth chairperson in the junior council.

He said that council employees represented public service, something on which he would like to focus. "I have always passed by this place, but it has never struck me that this is where people's lives are being affected," he said, referring to the Metro Centre.

Mbatha, who admitted that he had a passion for humanity and an interest in politics, said the programme was good because it gave youngsters a platform to change the world. "We [will inherit] this land and the city, so it is up to us young people to change it and give it world-class status."

Spending the whole day at the Metro Centre taught him that there were a lot of people who laboured hard to better the lives of others. "To them, I say salute, you are the best and you have outdone the rest."

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