Fredrick Moyo
Work to complete Roger Howman Training Centre hostels is at an advanced stage to lessen accommodation worries that have haunted the institution for years, with building of one of the hostels that started over 20 years ago being completed this year.
Speaking during a tour of the training centre in Masvingo’s Mucheke suburb on October 16, Minister of Women Affairs, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Sithembiso Nyoni said the completion would lessen accommodation worries that have haunted the institution.
“I have seen the great job that is being done here. I have seen the buildings there are adequate, we have to renovate those old buildings and can really help us in making this a production and also a distribution centre,” said Nyoni.
The new hostel with 18 rooms, laundry and ironing, matron lounge and a precast durawall is also going constructed.
The training centre had one old hostel with seven rooms that the minister said needs to be redesigned opening more windows for increased ventilation then it can be used as a temporary hostel.
She added that with the new buildings the centre also needs to leave the old fashioned way of training students but use the modern ways so that this institution becomes a vehicle towards vision 2030 and make it a centre where woman exchange ideas and gain knowledge and skills.
“We cannot have this centre doing the training of the old, this is what I came here to see so that when we come to officially open it, it would be a vehicle to move towards vision 2030 achievement.
“We need to make this centre a place where woman come and exchange ideas, gain skills and knowledge, so that when they leave this institution they can take care of themselves with the skills they would have attained,” said Nyoni.
Nyoni left a task to the people to speed up works so that the hostel can be officially availed for use before year-end as she emphasised that Roger Howman should not just be a training centre but also a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) centre that equips trainees with practical other than theoretical skills.
“By the end of this year we must officially open this place, let us not walk but run around because we are moving towards a certain goal.
“This used to be a woman training centre but we also want it to be a SME centre so that women come and go with skills that ground them to vision 2030 and not just come and gain the theoretical frame work,” she added.
A student at the training centre Tsitsi Chipfuwo said that they are facing a few challenges where they have inadequate sewing machines and they are still using hand machines that are affecting their production process.
“As for now have a few challenges that we are facing as students. We have a few machines and are still using hand machines that are affecting us in producing our garments,” said Chipfuwo.
She also left a message of encouragement to other women out there that they should come at Rodger Howman training centre where they are taught sewing, cutting, and designing for only three months.
