Grant awarded to Project Gateway Empowerment Program
The Foundation is pleased to continue it’s support of Project Gateway with a $25,000 grant.
The Empowerment Program is run through the Gateway School of Fashion Fusion with Craft and Business
Training and Mentoring. Through the Program, over 1000 students have been trained in hard skills such as
woodwork, metalwork, electrical training as well as Fashion Design, sewing and craft development. It has
also assisted more than 250 developing entrepreneurs in better business practice and mentored the leaders
of these groups until they are secure in Business knowledge. Over 70% of the entrepreneurs were still
running successful businesses 2 years after their training.
Most of the trainees are unemployed women, who are given the opportunity to improve their hard skills of
Craft making and / or Fashion Design as well as Business Skills training. This enables them to generate
income for themselves and their families.
Funds from this grant will be used to support individuals unable to pay the fees associated with the Program.
Learners would under normal circumstances be required to pay a fee structure. While this is built into the
budget the reality is that most of the learners are unemployed, out of school, under-educated learners.
Project Gateway is a development program and does not offer “hand-outs” as such. The learners are already
paying transport costs to reach the center 3 days a week. They travel for over an hour to get there and over
an hour to get back home. They desperately need to generate income for themselves and their families and
they feel that if they were better qualified in the hard skills of Fashion Design and sewing and had a greater
understanding of Business, they would be able to increase their income and build sustainable businesses.
The project is making a sustainable different by addressing unemployment and the lack of skills and
business education. By educating and up-skilling 20 – 25 learners per year in Fashion Design and Fusion
with Craft and by assisting 90 people per year with the Paradigm Shift Business Training program and
encouraging them to go on to the next 2 Modules which tracks their Business growth and success for a
period of at least 18 sessions, the organization believes that it makes a difference to the quality of each
person’s life. History has shown that most of the learners who study through Gateway School of Fashion
continue to generate income at varying levels for a number of years after the course. The Paradigm Shift
Course has been offered to over 2000 people in South Africa. Results so far indicate that over 70% have
increased their Business Income, and 34% of the people are now saving on a regular basis.
Project Gateway as a registered Non-Profit Organization is governed by a Constitution and Board of Directors
elected at an Annual General Meeting of the organization. The organization is overseen by a CEO, who has
considerable experience in community based programs. He is assisted in his role by a management team
consisting of skilled individuals and community representatives. Our books are audited annually. Gateway’s
Monitoring & Evaluation framework is strongly driven by the Results Based Model which measures
outcomes and impact. Baseline information is collected at the start of the project/work. This will then be
used as a platform from which to monitor our progress in terms of our intended outcomes. Monthly
statistics relevant to the program work will be recorded and used to evaluate the progress of the project. The
goals, objectives and activities detailed in this proposal will fall under the project’s monitoring and evaluation
system, and performance will be measured against these.