SA Affordable Housing September - October 2019 // ISSUE: 78 | Page 7

project, which has to be spent among local communities. For
instance, graduates may be appointed as the subcontractor
to a project, and they in turn employ locals and train them,
thereby also leaving critical skills at the community when
they move on to their next project.
They also receive subsequent mentorship post-graduation
to encourage them to find employment. This takes the form
of recommending them to contractors that Saint-Gobain may
have a relationship with, or help with establishing their own
businesses by referring them to potential clients who are key
customers of Saint-Gobain. In particular, each is given the full
tool set to see them on their way.
The academy links its graduates to public projects
underway, involving what is often hundreds of thousands
of square metres of ceilings and drywalls on projects such
as affordable housing developments, clinics, libraries,
and schools, which is possible as Saint-Gobain has a good
understanding of the industry and where projects are
occurring. Graduates get such work because they have NQF-
accredited certificates together with practical training.
Saint-Gobain Head of Academy & Specification Support,
Matthew Baney says the academy helps to ‘incubate’ the
graduates to ensure they get into such programmes, with
assistance as basic as ensuring they arrive on site. The entire
programme is predicated on giving students ‘living skills’,
he says. Mentoring is provided to ensure, for instance, they
accept appropriate contracts not ‘over their heads’.
One graduate of the class of 2016, Lehlohonolo
Palane, described how he had gone on to establish his
own business with some fellow graduates, and trained
additional staff. He doesn’t want for work, he claims.
“This is exactly what we aim to do in the academy,” says
Jean-Claude Lasserre, Saint-Gobain CEO for sub-Saharan Africa.
NEWS
The Saint-Gobain YouthBuild Academy has equal male and female
representation.
The academy recruits students directly from communities
around its training centre, putting them through a rigorous
selection process. The academy does not have to advertise
– at the end of each matriculation, Saint-Gobain typically
finds as many as 350 CVs left at its various offices. Successful
applicants are also paid a monthly stipend of R4 000 to ensure
they have food and accommodation – factors which may
otherwise hinder learners’ ability to study. The average 350
applicants compete for 50 positions at a time.
A few years ago, the ratio of students was 10:90 favouring
men – today, it is 50:50, as contractors are getting bolder
about accommodating ladies on site. Baney notes that
potential employers tend to favour women for their ‘greater
attention to detail’.
NuFlow secures improved pipe repair system
N
uFlow has become the agent for a UV pipe repair
technology manufactured by German company Pro-Kanal.
NuFlow launched the new product at the plumbing part of
the IFAT show, with MD Deon Pohorille explaining, “Nuflow
SA has upgraded its own system to be powered by the Pro-
Kanal offering, which we found after extensive research to be
the best in the world.”
Pro-Kanal founder Dieter Meier and his son Sebastian
were at the show to demonstrate the system, and explain
it to visitors in the plumbing section. The product is also
available in Japan, Denmark, the US, Switzerland and
Austria, in addition to home-base in Germany and now
South Africa.
Dieter Meier has been involved in pipe lining and repair
longer than most in the world, and was one of the original
pioneers of the NuFlow type pull-in-place process more
than 30 years ago. He has since been honing and refining
the process, and has now come up with the latest iteration.
The system he developed, according to Pohorillie, has a
number of variants around the world. He researched them
all, and found Pro-Kanal’s to be the safest and least time
consuming. “The others were highly complex – Pro-Kanal
was the simplest and completes curing in a maximum of 20
minutes which alternative systems take on average four to
five hours to do.”
HOW IT WORKS
NuFlow’s Pro-Kanal system on display at IFAT in July.
www.saaffordablehousing.co.za
• When a pipe requires repair, the first step is to clean it
with high-pressure water or mechanically so the liner
and resin can be installed efficiently inside the host
pipe. It can be almost any type of pipe.
• After cleaning, the length of the pipe is measured
and the liner (which is a round hose and calibrated to
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