SAICA'S Hope Factory wins coveted CSI award

The Hope Factory, founded in 2001 in a Cape Town garage, was recognised as one of the country's leading corporate social investment (CSI) projects on 10 November 2005.  The Hope Factory won the award in the Community Builder of the Year Awards in the emerging corporate category.

The competition, sponsored by Old Mutual, Sowetan and SABC 2 drew entries from across the length and breadth of South Africa.

The Hope Factory Thuthuka Wealth Creation project is a CSI initiative of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). Accepting the award, SAICA's Elizabeth Zambonini, the founder of The Hope Factory, said that her organisation was passionately committed to job creation and training.

“To date, 120 trainees have benefited from The Hope Factory's Western Cape programme, with an additional 114 expected to benefit from the project's job and wealth creation efforts by the end of 2005 in the Western and Eastern Cape. Many more will benefit in the future, as we also launched the project earlier this year in Port Elizabeth.”
She said that the accounting profession had long been involved in many CSI projects, but now through SAICA, were also working together on selected projects, amongst them The Hope Factory.

Zambonini said that The Hope Factory had been instrumental in providing opportunities for the unemployed to become financially productive and to gain practical work experience.

Training is provided in:

  • Technical skills like sewing, pattern making and bead work;
  • Business skills, encompassing entrepreneurship and small business; and
  • Life skills such as time management, CV writing and HIV/AIDS.

Once learners have graduated, they can choose either to start their own businesses, seek formal sector employment, study further, or join The Hope Factory Job Creation project. Here graduates manufacture corporate gifts and conference materials, which are sold to various companies and members of SAICA .

Zambonini said that SAICA aimed to expand and establish Hope Factory centres throughout South Africa to equip and empower the previously disadvantaged. “The accounting profession believes in leading by example.”