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About ETU
 

Who we are

Brief Overview

ETU aims to make a contribution to transformation, development and democracy in South Africa. We specialise in capacity building for community-based organizations, public servants and public representatives. ETU offers training, facilitation, materials development and strategic planning services.

We are experts in local government, elections, public participation, government policy, community development, public issue campaigning and HIV and AIDS. We usually work closely with clients to develop strategies and programmes and then develop training to ensure effective implementation.

Our Structure

ETU is a Section 21 non-profit company and is governed by a board of voluntary members. We have offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with trainers working in all nine provinces. We have a staff of eight trainers, four assistant trainers and four administrators. Most of our staff has been with us since 1993 and they share a wealth of experience, commitment, skills and knowledge.

Our Equity Profile

Our staff is 50% female and fourteen out of sixteen staff are historically disadvantaged individuals.

Our Pool of Trainers

We also have access to a pool of about 30 specialist part-time trainers, many of whom are trainers in the local government and development field. For mass training we can access a further 200 trainers who have worked with us on previous projects.

Our Strengths

  • Our ability to provide strategic support as well as training
  • Our ability to organize logistics and roll out cost effective mass training in all parts of South Africa and to promptly account for finances
  • Our skills in developing clear and simple manuals and materials
  • Our network of provincial trainers who can train in all national languages
  • Our experience of working in all parts of South Africa with public representatives, people from the public sector and many different community organizations
  • Our ability to simplify and communicate complicated legal and other information to people and to make them feel that they are able to do something about their problems

Our Services and Products

We have produced over 100 accessible plain English manuals for, among others, The Departments of Public Service and Administration, Social Development and Local Government, the South African Revenue Service and SA Tourism. We produce a 570-page paralegal manual targeting organisations that give free legal advice to the poor.

The paralegal manual and many other manuals produced by ETU are freely available as self help guides on this website!

ETU specialises in training on the following issues:

  • Campaigns
  • Community Education
  • Elections
  • Government policy
  • Mobilisation
  • Public participation
  • Communication
  • Development
  • HIV and AIDS
  • Local Government
  • Organisational Development (incl. Capacity Building)
  • Planning (incl. Strategic Planning)
  How to use the Paralegal Manual (the hard copy of this manual is available at cost price!)