When David Mulongoti enrolled at the Technical and Vocational Teachers College in Luanshya, Zambia, we made a promise: full funding, full wages, full support, for the whole of his study. This is the update.
David - one of our technical interviewers, and now a trainer - is completing his Diploma in Teaching Methodology at the college: full-time, face-to-face study, over an extended period. As part of his final teaching practice hours he is now doing the thing the diploma exists for: standing at the front of a class, teaching heavy equipment repair. He graduates with the authority to teach it.
The commitment behind it was set out plainly when he enrolled. “SMG and I will fund everything for David and we will continue to pay his wages while he is studying,” Dennis wrote at the time. David has remained an SMG employee throughout.
He has been mentored through it by Brent Diflo and Peter Pelling, who each gave more than thirty years to Hastings Deering (Australia) Limited - one of the world’s largest Caterpillar dealers, and the client whose programme is documented in Case Study 15 - and who donate their time to help David in any way they can.
In the original announcement, Dennis called David “living proof that hard work can overcome adversity.” The proof keeps arriving.
This is what we mean by ethical recruitment: train people, change lives for the better, and never charge a worker a fee. Together we are going to help train the next generation of heavy equipment repair technicians.
Dennis signed off the enrolment announcement with: “Good luck to you David, may all your dreams and goals come true.” Watching him take the front of a classroom, it looks a lot like they are.