Find out more about our latest activities and projects…
In July 2009, Joachim Karnath, CEO of CONTRACT Germany, spent time at the office in Cape Town to liaise with potential clients, meet with collaboration partners, get to know potential new team members, and gain deeper insight into the South African market. A meeting with Charles Scheltema, MD of Freudenberg Non-Wovens in Cape Town provided valuable information on the South African and Cape Town market. It was very valuable to hear about his experience of leading the South African part of a German company. A meeting with Claus Lauter and Joachim Schuckmann of Intergate Immigration provided us with valuable information, and opened up other avenues for potential synergies between CONTRACT and Intergate.
Another highlight of Joachim’s time in Cape Town were our conversations with Helene du Toit, which resulted in her joining our CONTRACT team! Helene, who worked as Human Resource Professional for a number of years, and has run her own coaching business up until now, joined our Team in August! In our next newsletter, we will publish an interview that will give more information of this new member of our team. You can get a glimpse of her here.
The last few months also marked the beginning of our work with new clients, and added two non-profit organisations and an academic institution to our already existing client portfolio in South Africa:
We started running workshops for the Raymond Ackerman Academy for Entrepreneurial Development. Our seminars on presentation skills, time management, communication, leadership and career development added to the Academy’s portfolio of equipping young entrepreneurs with crucial skills for success. Working with the academy’s target group – young people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds – has been a fantastic experience for us, and was highly valuable to our participants, too.
A two-module seminar on ‘Organisational Development and Change’ for the Graduate School of Business in Cape Town provided us with the opportunity to share our experience and knowledge of Organisational Development in an academic environment with Executives from the Services Sector. The feedback received by participants was along the lines of “great to have someone teach us who combines theoretical approaches with their practical day-to-day work and experience”, which we were very happy to receive.
We were also involved in the facilitation of workshops for teachers at the Shuttleworth Foundation, which aimed at enabling teachers to have access to open-source educational resources, and ultimately changing the quality of education in South Africa. Being involved in the Siyavula project (siyavula means ‘we are opening’) has been a rewarding and inspiring experience.
More news on our voyages in South African waters will follow soon…