The Garden Route Skills Mecca is a concept that emerged from a regional pandemic in June 2017 known as the “Knysna fires”. That pandemic resulted in what become known as the Garden Route Rebuild Initiative or GRRI. The GRRI developed a very detailed strategic plan in December 2017 that included the concept of a Skills Mecca as one of its strategic pillars.
To further the concept of the Garden Route Skills Mecca or the GRSM, two multi stakeholder summits were held in 2018 and 2019 to mobilise the involvement of all residents of the Garden Route around the concept of the Skills Mecca. Those two Skills Summits resulted in nine key resolutions noted below that today form the framework of the work of the GRSM.
The Resolutions
- Continue and accelerate collaboration and cooperation among all District skills development role players.
- Ensure that Skills Development leverages digital infrastructure as far as possible to ensure learning and processes methods are and remain cutting edge.
- As far as possible link Skills Development to Investment and Economic Development opportunities to the advancement for all.
- Ensure that all Skills Development processes in the Garden Route always proactively considers renewable energy.
- Engage with all willing partners, in particular the SETAs and the National Skills Fund, to explore the development and implementation of projects across the District.
- Consider and leverage local skilled people, including retired people, within the District, to accelerate the growth of the Skills Mecca.
- All public and / or private skills development projects and/or programmes in all municipalities are acknowledged, recorded on Skills Mecca on line solution and supported within resource limitations.
- Progressively support the development of the new apprenticeship of 21st Century (A21) in the District.
- Budget, plan and implement a Skills Summit every two years that is held in a different local municipality rotationally and alphabetically.
Formalised internal focused and externally focused structures to ensure good governance, leadership, management and administration of the GRSM projects, processes and programmes are fully operational, respectively known as the GRSM Task Team (internal) and the GRSM Forum (external). The work of these structures emphasize relationship building to create long term partnerships as an integral part of the District Development Model that is called the Joint District & Metro Approach in the Western Cape. This alignment is considered critical to ensure that the GRSM achieves its objective as one of the key enablers to the Garde Route District Growth and Development Strategy.
The infographic illustrates the various component parts of the Garden Route Skill Mecca concept that is explained in detail in the concept document that can be downloaded under documents on the Forum Page.
Click Image to Enlarge
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