Quarters on Florida Social & Environment Initiatives

Boutique, Hotel in Berea / Morningside, Durban   

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Social & Environment Initiatives

The name of our project is Ikusasa which means Tomorrow or The future.

St Martins was established in 1897, founded by Anglican Nuns. Father Vincent is the principal and has been running the home for four years. The home houses 72 kids of all races and they age from 4 to 18 years old.

At St Martins they run a school on the property for about 40 children. These children are not accepted into mainstream schools due to learning disabilities or development problems. They run 3 classrooms in this school and also take in children from the rural areas not only from the home itself. Part of their school program is the Skills development class where they are teaching these children catering, woodwork, painting and tiling and this is where we come in. This program targets children between the ages of 15-18 years.

Originally we had started renovating one of the abandoned rooms and we were planning to make it a classroom with a small kitchen which the Skills children could use for their catering class as they were using the main kitchen of the home. In addition to this every second week one of the KZN Three Cities Hotels would go to the home and teach the children to cook a particular dish. This meal would then feed the children in the home.


With the help of sponsorship we will now be opening a proper cooking school on the premises which will be named the Ikusasa School of Cooking. This school will have a fully equipped training kitchen similar to the one set up at the International Hotel School to cater for the 10 children on the skills development program. There will be a NQ based syllabis and a full time chef training these children academically and practically.

At the end of the one year course these children will be given a certificate and will be able to go out into the working world with some backing behind them which will hopefully hold them in good stead for a fruitful future in the hospitality industry.

Our target is to have the School up and running by January 2009.

We have created a Board of Directors which will head up the running of the project.

We believe this will benefit the industry as we will have young adults coming out of this school with drive and a passion to be the next Gordon Ramsay. But most of all this will give a child who once believed they had no future the skills and knowledge to go out and truly make something of themselves. And what more could we want for the beautiful children of our country.

Always remember: Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a seed a long time ago!