February 2021.

Kangnas Wind Farm’s Bursary recipient, Leanne Schmidt, strongly believes that young people should view agriculture as a cornerstone in communities’ well-being and consider it as a career option. She successfully completed her Bachelor Degree: Agricultural Management, passing with distinctions at the end 2020, despite the challenges of COVID, working and caring for her two toddlers.

Leanne will continue working at a local Northern Cape NPO, Surplus People Project, supporting emerging farmers to be sustainable, a cause that she committed to. The NPO’s focus is on the Namaqua District and works with previously disadvantaged and emerging farmers to support them in order to practice agriculture.

“Working with communities and to be able to help them achieve their goals in terms of agriculture is what I have always wanted to do,” added Leanne, whose parents both grew up on farms and used to share stories from their childhood.  She attributes these anecdotes, which sounded so ideal, to being the reason that she ventured into Agriculture as a career.

She has a wish to study Education so that she can continue to teach the youth the importance of agriculture and what it means in society.

The Wind Farm also provided support to Veronice Cloete, another Concordia resident. She is a strong believer in making a difference in the lives of young children, which is why she has moved heaven and earth to study, so that she can qualify as an Early Childhood Development (ECD) practitioner and start working in her community.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic I wasn’t able to complete my NQF Level 4 ECD course as we couldn’t attend contact sessions with our facilitator. The graduation ceremony has been shifted to this year, once I’ve completed and graduated with NQF Level 5,” explained Veronice.  Veronice’s work ethic and tenacity has won her high praise from her facilitator, who describes her as very thorough and diligent.