SA Affordable Housing March - April 2020 // ISSUE: 81 | Page 29

PROFILE
Of the enrolees on brick- and block-making courses, about
80% come from employees of major brick manufacturers and
20% from the informal brick making sector. Corporate
brickmakers send their staff on TCI courses to give them a
fundamental understanding of brick and block making
technology, while the informal market attends courses to either
learn how to make bricks – or how to make them correctly.
“What motivates me on a daily basis is the facility to
impart my knowledge especially to small business owners
who, with this knowledge, can transform their businesses into
something more substantial. The people I train are all at
different levels, from a person who has never done anything
with concrete but wants to learn more, through to employees
of concrete and cement manufacturers who want to upskill.”
While many people have no desire to improve their lot in life
beyond scraping a meagre living – and it is beyond Magwaza’s
scope to inspire everyone – a key part of the training he delivers
is to get learners to see that through learning they can improve
their careers and businesses for the long term.
Magwaza’s tenure at TCI was once broken for a year: “I
initially worked for Cement and Concrete Institute for 16
years, at which point I was recruited by another company. I
worked there only for one year, because I found I was not
using my knowledge to my full ability – I found myself sitting
in meetings half the day, whereas what I wanted to be doing
was standing in front of a class to give people the invaluable
knowledge on the product I love the most, concrete.”
Part of his love for his work is the constant positive
feedback he gets from learners. “There was a woman in
Swaziland who had a small brick-making business and her
bricks were constantly failing. She couldn’t understand what
the problem was, and eventually found us on the internet and
did one of our courses, the basic half-day course ‘Making
concrete bricks and blocks’ which has a lab session included. I
kept in touch with her and now her business is booming, and
she is supplying her bricks to the Swaziland government.
What was found during the course was that her mix ratios
were not right, and the type of cement used was not right – in
fact, a lot of things were not right. I corrected her on all those
mistakes, and now she’s got it right.”
There are five essential aspects to successfully making a
concrete brick or block:
• The ratios
• The type of cement used
• The strength
• The curing
• The type of materials used
CHALLENGES AND ACHIEVEMENTS
With learners enrolling from all parts of southern Africa,
Magwaza’s biggest challenge is consequently the language
barrier. “In South Africa, with our 11 languages there are people
who cannot speak English. I deliver the course in English, and
then I can explain what I just said individually in their home
language (he speaks five local languages: English, Zulu, Xhosa,
Pedi and Tswana, and is less fluent in a sixth – Afrikaans).
He lists his biggest personal accomplishment in life as
acquiring his Concrete Technician qualification, which has
formed the basis of his subsequent career, but his
fundamental accomplishment, he says, is the help he
constantly delivers to other people.
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Much of his enjoyment comes from helping the informal market
– individuals who make concrete bricks in rural areas, but
typically not to SANS standards (which would be the domain of
the major brick manufacturers). These are people who sell bricks
in rural areas, and if the bricks are faulty, those residences or
other structures are in real danger of falling down.
The irony is that people who don’t know how to make
bricks opt for a career in brick-making. What typically
happens, says Magwaza, is that an employed person gets
retrenched and decides to go into business for him/herself
with their retrenchment pay-out. If they are wise, they will
start off by doing a course, but this is not always the case.
They often just buy a cheap machine and start making poor
quality blocks, only realising their folly later when they can’t
sell their blocks.
To meaningfully help this sector, TCI decided to proactively
get out into the field and locate brickmakers to enrol on the
course and to train them at a reduced price. “I went into all
the townships to each and every brick and block maker, in
Pretoria, Midrand and elsewhere, and could only persuade
two people. The rest were not interested. The common
argument was, ‘Why should I leave my job and spend money
when I am going to lose income during that time?’ Once again,
one of the people who did attend similarly reported his
business in Westonaria is booming. So, training helps – if only
we could get others to see.”
In addition to the ever-popular Bricks and Blocks course,
Magwaza also delivers the following TCI courses, which are a
combination of half-day courses or special courses:
•
Introduction to concrete
•
Concrete basics
•
Mortars, plasters, screeds and masonry
•
Concrete for RMC truck drivers
•
Concrete for batchers and batch plant staff
•
Common concrete tests
A number of other courses are delivered by his colleagues
John Roxburgh, Gary Theodosiou and Bryan Perrie (head of
the TCI).
THE FUTURE
Where small-scale brick makers are likely to lose out is that
concrete is an ever-evolving industry, and the “the one thing
that is certain is that there will be technological
improvements in the future”.
“As research evolves, we continually update our courses to
stay abreast and implement any changes. The future of
entrepreneurship is through knowledge and skills – if they
don’t get that knowledge, they will find it difficult to produce
bricks and blocks to the required quality. There are some
initiatives to get informal brick makers to manufacturer their
bricks to the requirements of SANS 1215 which means that
those which don’t will fall further behind will find it
increasingly difficult to sell their products.
“That’s where I come in. Brick makers that wish to sell on a
larger scale to corporate developers or government need to
produce bricks and blocks of high quality and have them
tested and certified often. Corporates and government cannot
buy from them unless their products are certified to the SANS
standard,” says Magwaza.
MARCH - APRIL 2020
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