Through the Cape Skills Project, over 2 700 Capetonians have received work-ready training for the clothing and manufacturing and call centre industries over the last two years.
The students graduating this week had trained at 45 manufacturing SMMEs based in areas around the metro including Lakeside, Masiphumelele, Tableview, Brackenfell and Claremont.
The Cape Skills Project, which is funded primarily by the City and the National Skills Fund and facilitated by the City’s Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), the Craft and Design Institute and CapeBPO, is a first for a municipality and was designed to ensure skills pipelines for high-growth industries that will drive demand.
‘This project was designed to respond to a skills need in Cape Town’s high-growth industries and the needs of youths wanting to become part of the city’s workforce. There is a direct correlation between South Africa’s unemployment crisis – which largely affects our youth – and the lack of valuable skills. The City of Cape Town is working methodically to meet this challenge head-on and our efforts are bearing fruit,’ said Alderman Vos.
Earlier in the week, Alderman Vos conducted site visits at several of the City’s SPVs, including UVU Africa’s co-working space, the Bandwidth Barn in Khayelitsha.
‘One of the people who I spoke to was an entrepreneur who had graduated from the City-funded Top Tech Tools for Youth in Business Bootcamp programme last year. It was wonderful to hear that she is still making daily use of what she learned and using that knowledge to grow her operations.
‘We know that for businesses right now, priorities such as energy security and safety are understandably high on their risk assessments. But what needs to be there as well is skills development. Skilled persons are necessary to grow businesses and innovate industries. As a City, we are aware of this which is why our programmes are not simply funding training for the sake of it. We are investing in skills development in sectors that are booming right now and that will be dominant in the future. This will make Cape Town more productive and competitive. I can confidently say this City government is committed to building a community of diversely skilled Capetonians through priority projects with our SPVs. We have the foresight and vision to make Cape Town the best city in Africa to do business and work,’ said Alderman Vos.
