Graham and Nicola White with OASIS SA

Graham and Nicola White have made a commitment to spend at least two years working to improve life in the poverty stricken townships of Johannesberg.

They will be joining a South African couple with a view to establishing Oasis South Africa from scratch. The focus will be on combining local and international expertise to find innovative ways in which the church can address the issues facing South Africa. There expertise is in business, management, heaklthcare, HIV/AIDs, human resources and IT.

Graham and Nicola visited Uganda and were particularly impressed by the Net2Work project run by Oasis. This provides IT and job-skills training to disadvantaged young people who have been unable to complete their education, in order to improve their employment prospects and build their self-confidence. It wasn't just an IT course, they were also concentrating on building self-esteem and preparing them for work wityh the help of a community liaison officer.

The overall aim is to provide a model effective for community work and to equip local churches to get involved in their communities by offering training, consultancy and support to churches. Once the base is established the aim is to hand it over to local people. They see setting up a Net2Work project in Johannesburg as one of their main tasks.

If you are interested in finding out more about what Graham and Nicola are involved with they would be thrilled to hear from you. Their email address is mailto:thewhites@granicsa.co.uk