Cape Sheet Metal Works believes that social responsibility is a critical element of the company’s ethos
In 2015, the Airvent Group felt that, although it had brilliant people working within the Group, there was a lack of people that had experience – mostly due to the fact that the industry as a whole was not focused on training. The result was the opening of the HVAC Training Academy Pty Ltd. This was the foundation for Airvent’s social responsibility.
The HVAC Training Academy was started with the vision of excellence and the Academy has recently been through the rigorous process of getting Merseta Accreditation and has successfully achieved this honour.
The Academy has a dedicated training manager, Gavin Edwards, who has many years of experience within the industry and has taken the task of uplifting the Airvent staff to a new level.
The HVAC Training Academy was also established with the purpose of training the underprivileged to create employment for these people, and to this end, Airvent has collaborated with The College of Cape Town to form an informal partnership whereby they send their learners to the HVAC Academy and Airvent for practical experience.
In conjunction with the HVAC Academy, Airvent has a social development programme with a school in Genadendal. The company wanted to create a dream for these scholars as often the future for the youth is bleak. To this end, Airvent developed a programme that offers apprenticeships to three of the Genadendal scholars once they achieve the required Matric. These apprenticeships star in January every year.
Furthermore, to ensure that the apprentices experience the industry before joining the apprenticeship programme, the Airvent Group has designed a holiday programme for these scholars whereby join the Airvent team during the June/July holidays for five days. During this period Airvent feeds and houses them and coaches them both on what the industry is about as well as life skills.
Images of the school that the Airvent Group is building in Genadendal:
This hall is now being used by the children of the school as a place where they can have their lunches and breakfasts. Previously they had to sit outside in the cold of winter and the heat of summer and with a lot of dust blowing around it was never a nice experience.
They also use this as a hall for parent/teachers evenings.
