Protective Workshops

Western Cape Association for Persons with Disabilities

WCAPD
17/07/2019

Western Cape APD believes and recognises that building skills in persons with disabilities is key and essential for economic empowerment and independent living. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that skills development and education leads to the ‘full development of human potential and fosters a sense of self-worth and dignity’. WCAPD is therefore committed to ensuring that skills development in the form of community-living skills, trade skills and interpersonal skills are an integral part of our services.

South African Protective Workshops have developed within the disability sector since 1977 when the Department of Social Development (then called the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions) sent a circular to welfare organisations announcing a subsidy scheme to start and run protective workshops for persons with severe disabilities in the community.

The aim of protective workshops is not to provide a workplace for all persons with disabilities, but to rather develop the skills and abilities of these persons and to provide the necessary support which will allow them to find suitable employment or other forms of income generation. Protective workshops have since undergone many changes and the services that are currently provided at our workshops include:

skills development such as life-skills, work-skills as well as entrepreneurial development
psycho-social and other support services
empowerment and other capacity building programmes
contract work, which may be available at some protective workshops