Consumer Education
After months of working on changing the consumer education strategy to specifically target credit provider employees to up skill them on credit and credit related matters, the hard work and effort placed into compiling the Double Impact workshop and training material has finally come to fruition.  We launched our pilot of the new workshop material at Real People’s East London office during the week of 12 August.

A total of 147 delegates were trained and we received a great response from those who attended the training. We value the input received from Real People and will incorporate their suggestions in the finalised product.

To all employers who would like us to run Double Impact for their employees, this is how it works:

• Training is free – employers only pay for training material and our travelling expenses**
• Time commitment from the employer  to release staff for the 4 hours required to conduct the full workshop
  • Separate modules can be arranged on some topics, but it is preferable to run the full workshop as retention of the principles benefits from continuity.
• Full Measurement and Evaluation is done with follow up at 6 months and 12 months, tracking
  • Retention of knowledge and change in behaviour;
  • Productivity shift of the staff who attended
• Agony Aunt by email for ‘Double Impact graduates’ – the Credit Ombud will provide this follow up service free of charge, for any questions or advice needed at any time after the workshops

For more information on the contents and benefits of the workshop, give us a call – we will be happy to do a needs analysis and work out the best way to get Double Impact happening in your workplace!

**The only costs for the Employer are:

• Training Material (top quality file and contents)
  • You can use your own Printer, or we can produce it for you
  • Costs go down as volumes go up
    • Under 50 files will cost you ± R200 per file
    • Over 400 files will cost you ± R110 per file.
• A ‘tiny toolbox’ for each delegate to keep on their desks as a constant reminder of where to go for help;
  • ± R20 – made by an NGO, so this counts for CSI!
• Travel and Accommodation for the Credit Ombud Trainers if out-of-town

We look forward to partnering with our stakeholders to once again fully resume our consumer education.  All credit providers and other stakeholder who are interested in receiving training for their staff members are welcome to contact me via email on nloeto@creditombud.org.za.

A new Training Co-ordinator, Siyabonga Makhathini, has been appointed as we grow our capacity in the Training Department.  Siyabonga has spent the past two years as a Case Manager in the Credit Information Department and has a total of 6 years in the credit industry.  His experience in training within the credit industry will stand him in good stead within the department.

Work is underway to have the training team trained and well versed in delivering Training-the-Trainer workshops.  We have already started to engage some of the prospective entities who will benefit from this kind of training and look forward to making an impact with our training in this sector.

As part of Women’s Month celebrations, we teamed up with the Gauteng Consumer Affairs Office, in collaboration with the South African Council of Churches, to deliver workshops to the various women’s groups and organisations within the churches.
In terms of our media engagement we have managed to secure regular slots with a few radio stations. We have partnered with Thobela fm and Lesedi fm, receiving much valuable bi-weekly slots on the stations. Radio Teemaneng Stereo in the Northern Cape has also afforded us a weekly consumer education slot where we are able to educate consumers on credit and financial related matters. We look towards securing more such slots, especially with regional radio stations to further increase the footprint of our consumer education initiatives.