COMET Corporation, as part of it's Community Upliftment Program has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Western Cape Government earlier this month.

In this MOU, COMET will commence delivery of e-learning courses through the Cape Access community centres in the Western Cape, starting with a pilot initiative at 3 centres first. The 3 centres selected for the pilot are at Hawston, Vredenburg and Langebaan.

The idea is to provide short learning courses for communities, both coastal and inland to encourage the development of Alternative and Sustainable Livelihoods for impoverished community members. The initiative started with targeting the Coastal Fishing communities that have been severely compromised by both the ongoing over-fishing in SA waters in the past years, and the failure by DAFF to properly allocate fishing rights for the last two allocation rounds. These communities that rely on fishing, both commercial and subsistence, are now struggling with unemployment, rising crime, violence and substance abuse, and need to start developing alternative income streams.

The project has however, now expanded to include all communities, both coastal and inland, where the same or similar problems exist. COMET will first evaluate applicants who wish to enrol in courses, and then open the courses up to suitable learners who have identified what they would like to do. Courses are delivered via e-learning, using a Learning Management System (LMS) that has been provided by Penny Ferry Training for the purpose. The LMS is not close to being fully populated with course material as yet, but is growing rapidly and will be built depending on the community requirements.

Initial work was started at the 3 pilot centres 2 weeks ago, and training is expected to commence within the next 2 weeks.