SKOP celebrates 30 years with Wine Training SA

SKOP celebrated 30 years of providing training to the wine industry cellar workers and winery assistants with a wonderful awards ceremony and entertainment at Elsenburg, held on Saturday 6th Oct 2017.
Wine Training SA's Emma Burger has diligently been running these training courses and changing the landscape of education in the winelands for decades.
Congratulations to the first 5 graduates of the Wine-making Learnership program, a tough 18-month long course, viz Anrico Solomons(Linton Park), Heinrich la Fleur (DGB), Elveso Barry(Boschendal), Denovan Daniels (Jordan) and Chriswin Willemse (Raats)

There are already another 25 students on the next course.  WTSA is making empowerment and upliftment happen at a significant pace. Already in the last year, they have trained more than 800 workers in the wine industry.  More and more of their courses are being accredited and recognised by the FoodBev SETA. 

Well done to Emma and her team - there is an incredible amount of hard work going into this process and they deserve a standing ovation.
Emma has been working alongside the FoodBev Seta to get WTSA's courses accredited, and now not only is the Learnership course accredited but many of the other SKOP courses as well.

We were treated to some wonderful entertainment - Twin singers, Pindiwe and Bukelwa Panduva from Willowvale in the Eastern Cape, who did a vocal duo of note, and then Frederico Grainger who has been on SA's Got Talent got people moving, followed by the inimitable poet and rapper, Simon Witbooi (aka HemelBesem), who was inspirational, bringing his music and poetry to life on stage.  I was mesmerised by HemelBesem, and judging by the queue of people wanting to take pictures with him after his performance, he is well-loved and admired! 

Well done to all the SKOP students, to Wine Training SA (WTSA), to the Cape Winemakers Guild, Nedbank and Department of Agriculture Western Cape, without whom this would not have been possible, and to the wineries who support education by making it possible for their workers to attend these courses throughout the year.
#wineforgood