What can a computer-training program developed for poor people in south Minneapolis teach an impoverished township in South Africa? A great deal, as it turns out. And that’s thanks largely to the efforts of a General Electric subsidiary in Minnesota, Eden Prairie–based GE Commercial Finance Fleet Services.
Under the leadership of local GE employees Wendy Bell, Pamela Buchanan, Paul Kewitsch, and Michael Peckenschneider, a vocational training program for youth has been in development for three years in the South African township of Port Elizabeth, which had no access to computer training. Working with Minnesota businesses and nonprofits, the GE team gathered software programs and 100 computers. The equipment is being shipped to Port Elizabeth through another GE outpost in Minnesota, Minnetonka-based GE Water and Process Technologies.
The impetus for the program began in early 2000, when local GE staffers joined a project team targeting work and life skills development, including computer literacy, for low-income and welfare-to-work residents in Minneapolis’s Bryant neighborhood. The program was housed at Richard Allen Community Services, a nonprofit led by Philip Buchanan and the Rev. Richard Coleman. In 2004, Coleman and Buchanan began work with Monrovia, California-based African Enterprise to develop a similar program in Port Elizabeth. The GE team soon joined in the effort.
Jeffrey McCallum, President of McCallum Construction in Deephaven, nominated GE Commercial Finance Fleet Services for this year’s Corporate International Award. “By supporting solid training programs and computer technology education in townships, they know that the future lives of its residents will be better,” McCallum says.
