Theresa Rossouw, the manager of the Toevlug Centre in the Western Cape town of Worcester, says about 60% of inpatients are unemployed, and the lab will give them computer skills, email addresses, access to careers websites and the chance to compile CVs.
Interactive tools will improve patients’ reading and writing and support rehab programmes, and familiarity with Zoom will make it easier for them to stay in touch with Toevlug social workers and psychologists after they are discharged.
Maliska Rabe, a fundraiser and art therapist at the centre, says using a computer is a basic skill for a lot of people. ‘But for many of our patients it is something completely new, and it makes a world of difference to their confidence,’ she says.
Rossouw says the centre’s mission is to give patients hope. ‘For us, every patient that leaves the centre with new hope, with a sense of new possibilities, with new self-worth … that is success. The new computer lab will play an important role in helping us to achieve it, and we are so grateful to TFG for making it possible.’
Substance abuse centre gets youth computer lab, thanks to TFG.
