Why should students/volunteers make use of such services?
The services offered seek to provide students with the most rewarding, hassle-free and cost effective experience pertaining to their internship and general stay in Cape Town and South Africa. While students are of course free to follow a ‘Do-It-Yourself’ (‘DIY’) approach, this approach is fraught with frustration, risk, confusion and unforeseen costs. This due to the fact that students are usually unfamiliar with the Cape Town area, transport and safety factors, the reliability of welfare organizations, suitable accommodation locations/options and importantly what reasonable market prices are.
Sizisa uses its skills, local knowledge and relationships to remove these obstacles and risks and co-ordinates and pre-arranges key elements such as the actual internship and suitable and affordable accommodation. This gives students significant peace of mind both prior to starting and during their internship period.
Internship sourcing and placement
The placement of students into suitable internship organizations constitutes a significant value for students as Sizisa personally vets all such organizations to ensure their suitability, reliability and legitimacy. This is difficult for students to do prior to arrival (or at all) as they have to rely on websites and phone calls, without ever having physically visited the organization, or possessing the experience or tools to perform proper due diligence.
Securing suitable and reasonably priced accommodation can be difficult for students as most local landlords are hesitant to sign leases with foreigners not resident in South Africa, especially for periods less than a year. Shorter term focused accommodation options (hotels/hostels/B&B’s) are of course available, but are impractical from a cost perspective.
Sizisa is able to secure longer term, and thus more cost effective, accommodation on a furnished basis. Being ‘on-the-ground’ and armed with local knowledge and experience,
Sizisa is better able to vet and compare accommodation options, minimizing the risk of unmet student expectations and ‘overpaying’.
Most students prefer furnished accommodation as it is not worth the expense or effort to furnish their accommodation themselves for a period of less than a year. However renting furnished accommodation is expensive. Sizisa is however able to supply furnished accommodation at attractive rates, due to its ability and capacity to source quality second hand furniture and transport it.
Thus Sizisa’s accommodation services provide a very attractive proposition to foreign students.