Wednesday the 8th of February 2017 was a very exciting day for the local community at Singita Grumeti, as the first group of students from the new Singita Serengeti School of Cooking (SSSC) was awarded their graduation certificates at a special ceremony in front of their tutors and proud family members. The ceremony marks the culmination of 18 months of hard work and dedication, and is a celebration of how community projects like this create once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for the people living in and around Singita's 12 lodges and camps.

Each of these graduates now boasts a hard-earned professional cookery qualification and is equipped with the necessary skills and experience to apply for a commis chef position in Tanzania, and indeed the majority of the graduating class will join Singita and get to practice their craft for our guests. As the demand for qualified chefs in Tanzania's thriving hospitality and tourism industry grows, so the role of a facility like the SSSC becomes ever more important. It also serves to promote professional cooking as a highly skilled occupation that offers great prospects for employment, helping members of the local community to expand their horizons exponentially.

Singita's wide-ranging community partnership projects in Tanzania, through the work of the Grumeti Fund, focus on education, rural enterprise development and environmental awareness. This is helping to create self-sustaining jobs and ensure the existence of model small enterprises which can be replicated within other local communities. The GF is also responsible for funding the scholarships for every student attending the cooking school. Please visit our site to find out more about the community development projects under the care of the Grumeti Fund.