Westwold College: more than passion for the hotel business

Instilling passion for hospitality into young South African women is the main goal, albeit not the only one, of Westwold College, a tourism and hotel business technical training centre based in Johannesburg.

This is, besides the success of their technical training program, the female students receive something much more important than the chance to access a proper job. Westwold improves their self-steem and self-confidence, helps them know and value themselves. These matters are normally ignored because of personal needs when it comes to poor women.

Students from Westwold come from socially disadvantaged areas with high risks of criminality, prostitution and HIV/AIDS. Such life conditions, together with the heavy weight of gender inequality, leaves these women defenceless and extremely reduces their ability to have a dignified life.

The program began in 2004 and is directed by a team of professionals and volunteers with many years of experience in social and skill development. Thanks to this, students from Westwold can have a source of income in order to improve the lives of themselves and their families.

Knowing who you want to be and what you want to do, the easier it is to do it; making those helping happy, desiring to learn and grow, working as a team and having great goals to fight for are all values that Westwold passes on to its students.