Singita Community Culinary School - Grumeti
Following the success of our founding school in Kruger National Park, the Singita Community Culinary School (SCCS) was established to nurture the talent of young aspiring chefs from the communities surrounding our lodges.
Offering a rigorous, Singita-crafted professional cookery course that sees young people from local communities graduating as commis chefs of the highest calibre, there are three Singita Community Culinary Schools (SCCSs) – located in South Africa, Tanzania and Rwanda respectively. Admission into the programme is competitive and graduates emerge with highly sought-after skills and strong employment prospects.
- 2007: SCCS opens at Singita Kruger National Park
- 2015: SCCS opens at Singita Grumeti
- 2021: SCCS opens at Singita Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda
Singita partners with Prue Leith Culinary Institute, a leading Academic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Partner. SCCS students graduate with an internationally recognised City & Guilds Level 2 Diploma in Professional Cookery. In addition to this academic diploma, graduates complete the WSET Level 1 Wine, Fire, and First Aid Level 1 Certification. Graduates proceed to an internship programme and receive job placement support, while exchanges with local and international kitchens are also available. The Singita Community Culinary Schools constitute a significant step towards achieving Singita’s long-term community development goal of assisting the families that live in and around the reserves to thrive – both economically and socially. Support for these projects includes sponsoring a student to attend an SCCS; contributing to the SCCS Expansion Fund; and participating in cooking classes at an SCCS, which entails a donation.
Singita Community Culinary School - Grumeti
CommunityConservation Partner
Grumeti Fund
As the custodian of more than 350,000 acres of the world-renowned Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania, Singita’s partnership with Grumeti Fund has had a profound impact on the Serengeti ecosystem. The non-profit Grumeti Fund carries out wildlife conservation and community development programs in and around the Singita Grumeti Reserve.
Faced with challenges including uncontrolled illegal hunting, rampant wildfires and spreading strands of invasive alien vegetation when they took over the management of the area in 2003, the Fund dedicated itself to transform severely depleted wildlife numbers into thriving populations once more. Restoring this once barren and highly degraded region to a flourishing wilderness, their successes include the remarkable recovery of many species – including buffalo, wildebeest and elephant populations, and in 2019, the Fund carried out the largest single relocation and reintroduction of 9 critically endangered Eastern Black Rhino.
The non-profit Fund is fiscally independent in its conservation and community project operations. Funds are derived in the form of donations from Singita guests, NGOs and philanthropists seeking to make a lasting contribution to the sustainability of conservation work in Africa.
