Community Kinship

01.06.07

Author: Sujata Agrawal

From helping village women become literate to training jewellers and ceramic artists, Tata Africa takes its community responsibilities as seriously as its businesses

She is a middle-aged woman in a South African village, works as a farm labourer, and she has something to tell the world: "I can now read the Bible without depending on my granddaughter to read it to me." After just 10 weeks of training, this lady has conquered ignorance; she can now read and write. "It is stories like this which inspire us to do more," says Syamal Gupta, a director with Tata Sons and chairman of Tata International, who oversees the Tata Group's adult literacy initiative — implemented in South Africa by the WDB trust — that has so far trained 65 people to read.

South Africa, headquarters of Tata Africa, there are currently two community development programmes that highlight the Group's commitment to support economic and social development.

The first, the adult literacy project, involves a partnership between Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the WDB Trust, an organisation that works in the areas of micro finance, entrepreneur training and education for impoverished rural women.

The second is a skills-training programme in which people from rural South Africa are trained in jewellery making at the Titan plant in Bangalore, and in decorating ceramic ware at Tata Ceramics in Kochi. The programmes have been conducted in association with Kgabane, an organisation that works to alleviate poverty and create self-employment opportunities for rural women.

Thanks to TCS's pioneering computer-based functional literacy programme (CBFL), more than 46,000 people have learnt to read and write in India. Making its debut in the Beeramguda village in Andhra Pradesh in 2000, the programme has spread to other parts of India and has now winged its way across the Indian Ocean to the shores of Africa.

The seed for this remarkable effort was laid in 2002, when the WDB Trust's chairperson, Zanele Mbeki, the wife of South African President Thabo Mbeki, visited India. She was impressed with the CBFL programme and was interested in replicating it in her country.

Prof P. N. Murthy and Major General (retired) B. G. Shively from TCS visited South Africa to see which of the country's indigenous languages would be the most suitable for the methodology used. North Sotho (Sipedi) was the first language selected, as the Trust had linguistic expertise in it. The sounds were mapped and a phonetic script developed with the help of local experts. What made the project easier was that, phonetically, Indian and South African languages are quite similar. While TCS helped in the linguistics and software development, the facilitators were locals.

The first programme was conducted in early 2004 with a group of 62 women. It took exactly 10 weeks for the women to become literate (40 women successfully completed the course). It is literacy at a very elementary level, but it's made a big difference to the lives of these women. "It was moving to see the women so excited at finally being able to read," says the WDB Trust's executive director, Prof B. Moffat. "The main benefit of this programme has been the self-confidence the women have gained and the increase in their self-esteem. In South Africa, literacy is highly valued and people who cannot read are looked down upon. In fact, some people just pretend to be able to read. It erodes their self-confidence, because they are always worried that someone is going to find out."

The WDB Trust has now independently developed the programme in a second language, Xhonga, and it will be implemented as soon as an assessment is done by TCS. South Africa has 11 official languages of which eight are indigenous. It's too costly to implement the programme in all the languages simultaneously, so the Trust is developing them one at a time. The next on the list is Zulu, the most widely spoken indigenous language in South Africa.

A major challenge for the Trust is getting the women to commute to its literacy centres. Says Toto Nduba-Dikgole, who is closely involved in the project: "Rural areas in South Africa are sparsely populated and, since transportation is scarce, the women have to walk long distances. We need to conduct training sessions in areas which are within a 5-km radius of the villages." The WDB Trust is fortunate that computers are not in short supply (two women share a computer). This has given a boost to the programme, as the women also become computer literate.

Future plans include teaching English, the lingua franca of business in South Africa. The Trust currently has limited resources, but it has plans to network with other non-government organisations who teach English. "The CBFL programme has made a huge difference to the lives of women in some rural areas and we are happy with the relationship we have developed with the Tatas," says Ms Moffat. "Their commitment is exceptional."

Interweaving livelihoods

Andrew loves Indian culture, specially the festivities of an Indian wedding. They are very colourful, he admits shyly, but he found the food too spicy. Andrew was in India last year as part of a team that spent six months training in jewellery making at Titan Industries in Hosur.

The programme was initiated by Tata Africa with Kgabane, an organisation set up by the Ministry for Minerals and Energy, in partnership with Harmony Gold and Mintek (the South African R&D centre for minerals technology).

Their association with the Tatas began when Tata Africa director Raman Dhawan was invited to be a member of the board. "We welcomed the programme as we saw a lot of opportunity to train some of our already skilled people," says Busisiwe Ntuli, Kgabane's chief operating officer. "It's been exciting working with the Tatas. They always go the extra mile and make things happen."

Kgabane works mainly with people who are unemployed or don't have guaranteed incomes. "We try to introduce the women to some kind of activity so that they can earn a basic monthly income," says Ntuli. Nearly 300 women have been trained at their workshop. They receive a stipend during the training period and then earn through the sale of products, which are sold through outlets in Johannesburg, Cape Town and other large cities. The women also sell products from home to the community around them.

The seven people who were sent for training to Titan already had some basic knowledge. "We realised that they were not going to learn the basics in India. Their training would be to enhance their skills so as to generate greater income for themselves," says Ntuli. They worked on stone settings, polishing and bench work.

Andrew, who trained in stone setting, has already begun working on jewellery pieces since his return and is also training new groups of people. Christine, who did bench work, is from a division of Mintek which deals with mining, ceramics and glass beads. They also train women in jewellery manufacture for self-employment. Christine's designs are inspired by African art and, apart from seashells and ostrich shell, she also uses glass and ceramics beads made from recycled glass bottles, a process that has been developed by Mintek.

"I have learned a lot from my visit to Titan, especially about working with gold jewellery," says Christine. "Their designs were very different and now I can add to my designs from what I have learned in India. I hope to start my own business in a few years." Christine has trained around 50 housewives and young girls in glass-bead jewellery and also helps them market the products.

Ntombenhle, from Nkalipho, an organisation in Durban, spent nearly two months training at the Tata Ceramics factory in Kochi. "We enjoyed our training because it was something new for us," she says. "We did decoration work on tableware; the designs were very different because the orders were mostly from European countries."

Ntuli would like to strengthen Kgabane's relationship with the Tatas. "It's been good to work with the Tatas; their commitment and involvement in the projects we have worked on together are outstanding," she says. For the Group, spreading its community development activities to the African continent is but a corollary of its business philosophy.