The Cape Skills and Employment Accelerator Project is a two-year project which is focused on the Cape Town design sector with the goal of creating employment opportunities for youth and women in the clothing and textile industry. In the first phase, nine businesses were contracted, and they are creating a total of 23 work-placement opportunities.
The project is being run by the Craft and Design Institute (CDI), based in Cape Town, with the support of the City of Cape Town in partnership with the National Skills Fund.
The project is recruiting between 40 to 60 SMMEs to participate, and the goal is to train 200 machinists for the sector in total. The project enables design-sector SMMEs to take on machinists at a greatly reduced cost to their business while creating learning and work opportunities for unemployed women and youth.
Businesses have the opportunity to recruit their own learners with the goal to sustainably build capacity for their growing demands. Learners become part of an accredited learnership, completing 25% of the year in class and the remainder of the year in the business.
