Red Band Barista Academy meets unemployed youth where they are, takes their hand … and teaches that hand to pour outstanding coffee.
This flagship project is a sparkling experience for young people. Graduates emerge confident in themselves and their ability to pour industry standard espresso-based beverages.
We then join hands again to secure job placements.
Red Band was born out of a friendship, a passion for coffee and a love of humans.
Three friends conspired to create a vision for excellent coffee training and real job opportunities, all tied together with humour and heart. In 2014 co-founder Shaun Aupiais led the first class with a small group of curious youngsters.
Since then, hundreds of baristas have graduated and are flourishing in top coffee bars across South Africa. A pioneering training centre with plenty of heart is flourishing in Uganda.
And the friendship between co-founders Shaun and husband-wife combination Ryan and Jessica le Roux is happily flourishing too.
The Red Band program begins with a preliminary job-readiness course, facilitated by Work 4 a Living.
From this pivotal, mind-set shifting fortnight, students enter a rigorous theoretical and practical training journey.
Red Band 5-week learning journey:
Graduation day is something we consciously celebrate with our newly-minted baristas.
The coffee flows (sometimes tears do too) and the smiles are wide.
Each barista receives what has become iconic in our culture – a red band, representing ubuntu and our ‘band of baristas.’
Red Band graduates find themselves spoilt for choice. Two employment tracks are available.
Industry Placement | We are proud to consistently place trained baristas with industry icons. Red Band graduates are valued long-term, often achieving management positions.
Red Band Skills Bar | Alternatively, outstanding graduates are offered a year’s placement at a Red Band Skills Bar. Our Skills Bars are a result of special relationships with corporate partners willing to invest in their community. These companies launch a real-life coffee bar on premises and allow graduate baristas to run the show. Graduates shine as they manage their very own space – at a scale that is manageable.
Front-line workers were unarguably the heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During this time we challenged ourselves to find a creative way to show our support. We set up mobile coffee counters at hospitals and offered community-sponsored, barista-crafted coffee to medical professionals.
10 hospitals were served in Mandela Bay and Cape Town, South Africa and Jinga, Uganda.
You bought over 3000 cups for us to give away! partners willing to invest in their community.
These companies launch a real-life coffee bar on the premises and allow graduate baristas to run the show. Graduates shine as they manage their very own space – at a scale that is manageable.
Red Band Barista Academy is a project of the Leva Foundation. The Leva Foundation is a non-profit organisation (NPO) based in South Africa. Our Public Beneficiary Organisation (PBO) certification allows us to issue section 18A tax exception certificates. We are actively developing funding offices in the US (registered 501C3 NPO) and Europe.