Valcare and SA20 franchise Paarl Royals have joined efforts to empower marginalised women in the Paarl community.

In an effort to uplift the Boland region, the Paarl Royals and Valcare identified two projects to support; Elevation Programme and Take a Step.

Elevation Programme strives to end unemployment in its community by ensuring women are job-ready and able to retain professional positions. They train and guide unemployed women to find job opportunities and offer skills development, mentoring programmes and job recruitment and placement services.

Take a Step is a non-profit business incubator fighting poverty and unemployment. They primarily support and empower women entrepreneurs whose businesses have both an economic and a social impact. Through their programmes, Take a Step provides entrepreneurs with a step-by-step guide on how to run a scalable, profitable, and sustainable business.

Speaking on the collaboration and extension of support to the Paarl community, Alok Chitre, Chief Business Officer of the Paarl Royals, said, “As a franchise group, we have always worked with the vision of impacting society using cricket as a vehicle, and we are delighted that we can extend that impact in our home region of Paarl. Through this initiative in association with Valcare, we are hoping to support the larger community in the region with the emphasis on upskilling and mentoring women to be professionally engaged and create sustainable businesses for themselves.”

Valcare is enthusiastic about this partnership and excited about the positive difference the collaboration will have in the lives of women in our community. Ivan Swartz, Valcare CEO, expressed, “Enabling impact is part of what we do, but to take hands with the Paarl Royals has been tremendous! They truly engage and collaborate to make the world a better place. We are thankful and very excited about what the future holds.”