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Uplifting domestic and office workers

Cape Town - In 2008 Andrea Bester had a dream of starting a training facility where women and men could be empowered.

Today her Blue Sticker Training offers training and placement for domestic workers.

The course’s practical skills-development content is taken from the Services SETA Unit Standards on Domestic Cleaning – making it relevant and useful to anyone wanting to work as a housekeeper, office cleaner and tea lady.

She tells Fin24 how it all started and what value her services add.

How does Blue Sticker Training empower people and make them more valuable employees?

When I started Blue Sticker Training, my desire was to uplift a group of people, who I felt were greatly underappreciated and overlooked in their employment environments – domestic workers, tea ladies and nannies.  

As a white, middle-class South African, I grew up with a domestic worker in our home. She looked after my brother and I since we were babies, as both our parents worked.

We were naughty kids and she was quite proactive with her discipline techniques. I remember receiving a daily dosage of beatings.

She also thought sharing was caring and "took home" bags and bags of my mother’s clothing over the years.

Since my mom is a bit soft-hearted, she would just say, “Oh, it’s a cultural thing, dear” and forget about it.  

So, I guess I’ve always been aware that certain behaviours that many might take for granted – because of parents who work in a professional environment or being surrounded by well-educated people – were not common across the board.

It was only much later that I realised that most of the negative behaviour of domestic workers in the home was really produced by a lack of skill and understanding.

Often the women simply don’t know how to clean and many have never been taught a proper work ethic, because most were taken out of school at a young age.

The women don’t understand certain boundaries in a work environment, because they often grow up sharing a small two-roomed house with seven other people and, as such, think of material possessions as communal.

These are obviously broad generalisations, but the point is that there is a huge social context to the need for training in domestic work.

How do you structure the training? 

The domestic worker training course is really all about teaching women how they can perform excellently in a home working environment, what their employers expect of them and how to meet those expectations.

The course contains everything they might need in a work context – from practical cleaning lessons, all the way through to personal growth counselling.

I really spend a lot of time addressing self worth and identity issues, because I find a lot of the women struggle to swallow the idea of being domestic workers for the rest of their lives.

So I try to teach them that that is not the source of their worth or identity and that they can better themselves in various other ways and keep themselves stimulated.  

What do you offer?

I train and place domestic workers into jobs. The placements are totally free for the employer.

It’s a convenient way of getting a trustworthy domestic worker who you know is trained and ready for employment, for free.

Currently the most popular course is the general domestic worker training.

It is fully packed with information and practical exercises.

It’s probably the best for anyone who wants the performance of their domestic worker to improve across the board, from ironing to attitude.

I also do personal one-on-one job training with domestic workers – whether male or female – and office tea ladies at their place of work.

I find this works well for employers, who need specific issues addressed and don’t have time to work with their employees themselves. 

I train around ten women per course, with six full days of training for the whole course.

We do one day of class training and one day of practical cleaning each week. I usually run a course per month.

The on-site training is more sporadic and depends on the needs of each client, as I arrive at their house and train their domestic worker according to their unique specifications. 

What are the costs?


The group training costs R250 per session, per candidate – so a total of R1 500 for the full course.

The ladies receive a Blue Sticker certificate upon completion of the course.  

The on-site training is R750 per day for each candidate.  

Where are you based?

I’m equipped to place and train ladies throughout the Cape Peninsula and Winelands.  

What is the benefit of your training?


I really recommend the training for anyone with a male or female domestic worker, office tea lady or nanny.

The course has had amazing results.

By combining practical training and personal counselling, I have seen real change in the hearts and minds of those I train.

There have often been moments of tears in class as women have realised things about themselves that they never knew – personal attitudes and issues that have kept them from performing in their working environments for years.

The Blue Sticker Training course is truly a way for employers to value and uplift their employees, taking their lives and needs seriously, while at the same time meeting their own household management needs.

- Fin24

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