NSF

Project Description:

The National Skills Fund (NSF) Tourism and Hospitality Project is designed to address essential skills gaps within the Garden Route District Municipality's tourism and hospitality sector, a key driver of regional economic growth. Funded through a statutory levy under the Skills Development Act, NSF channels resources via the Garden Route Skills Mecca (GRSM) platform, which translates national training priorities to the local context. The project focuses on delivering tailored, industry-specific training programs in collaboration with local educational institutions and private sector partners, ensuring that participants receive practical, work-integrated learning opportunities such as apprenticeships that directly lead to job placements. By engaging a diverse range of stakeholders including local and provincial government, community development practitioners, and industry bodies, the initiative not only boosts individual employability but also stimulates broader economic and social development.

stakeholders

Local Government:
- Garden Route District Municipality (GRDM): Provides strategic oversight, project coordination, and integration of the NSF project within local development plans. The following are Provincial Departments that contribute:
  - Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism
  - Western Cape Department of Local Government
  - Western Cape Department of Social Development
  - Western Cape Department of Infrastructure
  - Western Cape Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning
Funding and National Agencies:
- National Skills Fund (NSF): Supplies the core financing based on national skills priorities and statutory funding mechanisms.
- National Departments: Oversee policy alignment and ensure funding meets national development objectives. These are:
  - Department of Higher Education and Training
  - Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation
  - Department of Employment and Labour
  - Department of Tourism
  - Department of Trade, Industry and Competition
  - National Treasury
Educational and Training Institutions:
- Local Vocational and Training Providers: Institutions such as Eden Hospitality & Training and Africa Skills George Tech (formerly Africa Skills College) design and deliver the industry-specific training modules.
Private Sector Partners:
- Local Businesses and Industry Associations: These entities provide work-integrated learning opportunities, help shape training content, and offer job placements or apprenticeships in the hospitality and tourism sectors.
Community and Civil Society:
- Local Residents and Community Groups: Offer grassroots insights to ensure the project addresses local needs and helps foster community ownership.
- Community Development Practitioners: Act as bridges between the community and decision-makers, ensuring that the training and subsequent employment opportunities truly benefit the local population.

Supporting Legislation for NSF project

Skills development Act.pdf

Skills Development Act

tourism white paper.pdf

White Paper on the Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa

whitepapertourism wc.pdf

White Paper on Sustainable Tourism Development and Promotion in the Western Cape

nsf project with etafeni

The NSF Hospitality and Tourism Project, delivered through the Garden Route Skills Mecca, aligns with Etafeni’s mission by addressing core objectives that underpin both initiatives: skills development, employability, and local economic empowerment. Etafeni’s work in Nyanga focuses on Early Childhood Development, strengthening caregiver capacity, and creating sustainable income streams through skills training and enterprise. The hospitality project promotes sector‑specific, work‑based learning that increases participants’ chances of gainful employment and builds practical competencies that can translate into livelihood opportunities for vulnerable households.

Etafeni Day care Centre Trust Programmes

Fit for Life, Fit for Work

Fit for Life, Fit for Work is a holistic youth development initiative targeting unskilled and disadvantaged young people in Nyanga and nearby informal settlements. It equips participants with essential life and employability skills through training in goal-setting, personal development, computer literacy (including coding), teamwork, financial literacy, and job readiness. The programme also includes entrepreneurship training, job placement support, and pathways to higher education.

Women's Sewing Training Programe

The programme provides entry-level sewing and beading training to women and community members, equipping them with practical skills to pursue employment or launch small businesses. It also integrates soft skills development, helping participants apply these competencies to generate income. Etafeni offers accredited sewing instruction through the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) SETA. Each year, the programme trains 100 women and youth, particularly those affected by HIV, from low-income communities with limited formal education (ranging from Grade 6 to Grade 11).

Nutrition and Home Food Garden Programme

The nutrition and home food garden programme enhances the health and nutritional well-being of vulnerable children and community members, particularly programme beneficiaries by offering essential dietary education and practical support. It helps households set up home gardens to combat severe malnutrition and improve overall community nutrition, while also strengthening food security at the household level.

Images and Information sourced from: Etafeni Day Care Centre Trust

Under the NSF Hospitality and Tourism Project, certain Etafeni Programmes can benefit or be in support of the project:

Fit for Life, Fit for Work: Provides a natural recruitment and readiness platform for NSF-funded hospitality training. Its focus on life skills, personal development, and employability equips participants with the foundational competencies, confidence, and communication skills needed to succeed in workplace placements and customer-facing roles in the hospitality sector. By embedding hospitality modules into Fit for Life, Fit for Work, the NSF project can ensure that learners are not only technically trained but also socially and emotionally prepared for the demands of the industry.
Women's Sewing Training: Supports the NSF project through enterprise development and local procurement. Trained women can produce uniforms, aprons, table linens and other hospitality textiles, creating a community-based supply chain that supports catering enterprises and ECD centre feeding schemes. This integration promotes local economic development, strengthens women’s income generation, and reinforces the NSF project's emphasis on inclusive, demand-led skills ecosystems.
Nutrition and Home Food Garden: Provides the raw inputs, fresh produce, nutrition knowledge and food safety awareness that can be channelled into accredited catering modules and community feeding pilots. By linking garden outputs to hospitality training, the NSF project can support Etafeni in developing garden-to-kitchen value chains that feed ECD centres, supply community catering enterprises, and meet provincial nutrition standards. This creates a closed-loop system where training, production and service delivery reinforce one another.

Strategic partners for Nsf Project with Etafeni

Department of Health contributes technical expertise and oversight in nutrition, food safety, and public health standards. By aligning Etafeni’s catering and feeding initiatives with provincial nutrition protocols, the department ensures that hospitality training is not only skills-based but also health-enhancing. This partnership enables Etafeni to integrate health screenings, menu planning, and food hygiene into its curriculum, directly supporting Early Childhood Development (ECD) outcomes.
Department of Tourism provides sectoral alignment and strategic direction. Its policy frameworks and transformation goals legitimise community-based hospitality training and enterprise development. By recognising Etafeni’s role in local supplier development and inclusive tourism, the department can facilitate access to tourism value chains, promote community catering enterprises, and support placement opportunities for graduates in hospitality venues.
Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) is central to accreditation, curriculum design, and quality assurance. Through its oversight of TVET colleges and SETAs, DHET ensures that Etafeni’s training modules meet national standards and articulate into formal qualifications. This partnership also enables recognition of prior learning (RPL), allowing community learners to convert informal experience into certified credentials.
National Development Agency (NDA) acts as a catalytic funder and capacity builder. It provides seed funding, governance support, and enterprise incubation services that strengthen Etafeni’s institutional readiness to deliver NSF-funded programmes. The NDA’s emphasis on community ownership and sustainability aligns with Etafeni’s mission, enabling the development of locally governed catering enterprises and nutrition initiatives.
Western Cape Department of Social Development supports Etafeni through its focus on vulnerable populations, especially women and youth. By funding life skills, psychosocial support, and caregiver empowerment programmes, the department ensures that NSF hospitality training is embedded within a broader social development framework. This partnership also facilitates referrals, wraparound services, and monitoring of social impact.
Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness reinforces the provincial health agenda by integrating Etafeni’s nutrition and feeding schemes into district health planning. It provides technical endorsement, monitoring tools, and access to community health networks, ensuring that hospitality training contributes to improved child health and wellness outcomes.
Western Cape Department of Education plays a key role in linking Etafeni’s feeding and nutrition work to ECD centres and school-based programmes. By aligning catering outputs with school nutrition standards and supporting curriculum integration, the department helps position Etafeni as a service provider within the education system, creating demand for trained caregivers and catering graduates.
Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism supports enterprise development, market access, and local procurement. It can facilitate inclusion of Etafeni’s catering enterprises in municipal supply chains, promote community tourism initiatives, and provide mentorship and business development support. This partnership ensures that hospitality training leads not only to employment but also to sustainable micro-enterprises.

Policy Documents Related

Click on the heading to access the document

White Paper on the Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa

The White Paper creates entry points for collaboration by translating national objectives into sector priorities that require multi-actor implementation. Government departments use the policy to convene TVETs, SETAs, municipal skills meccas and employers around agreed targets for skills, enterprise development and transformation. Community organisations are recognised as partners in supplier development, training delivery and social enterprise incubation. Through these formalised roles, the White Paper enables joint planning forums, shared funding instruments, procurement set asides for community suppliers, and monitoring frameworks that hold partners collectively accountable for outcomes such as trainee placements, enterprise sustainability and improved local nutrition or ECD services.

National Skills Fund Revised Strategic Plan (2020-25)

The plan’s emphasis on funding education and training, improving the PSET system and supporting community level skills infrastructure creates concrete entry points for collaboration: it justifies grant financing for modular, accredited catering and hospitality training; it legitimises partnerships with TVET colleges and municipal skills platforms for recognition of prior learning and workplace placements; and it encourages coordinated funding that can link NSF investments with municipal or provincial support for Etafeni’s Nutrition and Home Food Garden and catering pilots.

Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness Strategic Plan 2025-30

The plan creates a clear provincial mandate for community‑based health action and partnership, which legitimises municipal and provincial investment in nutrition, ECD and community health platforms. It gives government actors a policy reason to engage with community organisations such as Etafeni and with skills‑development projects (NSF hospitality initiatives) where those projects demonstrably strengthen child nutrition, feeding schemes and food‑safety standards. By prioritising community-oriented primary care and wellness, the plan opens formal channels for joint planning, resource alignment and shared accountability between health authorities, the NSF/skills platforms and community delivery partners, turning isolated interventions into coordinated, funded programmes that link training, nutrition outcomes and service delivery.

Policy on the Funding of Non-Government Organisations in the Social Development Sector

Under this policy, government departments gain a formal mechanism to invite proposals from NGOs such as Etafeni for pilots that combine hospitality training with centre‑based nutrition interventions. Funding agreements and service plans translate national and provincial priorities into locally measurable deliverables, which align departmental incentives with community practice and create an institutional rationale for joint planning and shared oversight between the Department of Social Development, health and skills platforms. The policy’s requirements for published agreements and reporting increase transparency and make roles, deliverables and performance visible to all partners, fostering shared accountability rather than siloed action.

National Development Agency Strategic Plan 2025-30

The NDA’s emphasis on resourcing CSOs, institutional capacity building and creating community work opportunities turns inter-sectoral collaboration from a policy aspiration into funded action. Government actors can use NDA grants and partnership platforms to co-finance pilots, require multi-party consortia (including municipal skills coordinators, DHET/TVET, DoH and employers) and legitimise NGO roles in supplier development and training delivery. For Etafeni, the NDA offers seed funding, governance and M&E support, and market readiness interventions that make proposals to the NSF and provincial departments more competitive and operationally viable, while NSF and departmental technical inputs ensure alignment with accreditation, food safety and employer standards. In short, the NDA creates catalytic financing, convening power and capacity supports that join government systems and community action around measurable local outcomes.

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