Pereira is a 2014 ‘boot camp’ finalist

The International Hotel School (IHS) is again hosting its annual national bursary competition, where pupils currently in matric have the opportunity to enter to win 100 per cent of their tuition fees, for any IHS programme for which they wish to study, for the duration of their studies.

Prizes nationally – Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town – the total is close to R750 000.

Homestead resident and Edenvale High School pupil Brandon Pereira (18) was chosen as one of six students to participate in the bursary competition’s final round for the Johannesburg region, the hospitality boot camp.

This five-day boot camp will see Pereira and the other pupils working in each department of the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre, in Boksburg, to get a feel of the industry and to see if they are cut out to follow this industry as a career.

Round one saw entrants having to complete four days work experience and a project, after which selections were made for a certain number of pupils to proceed through to the semi-final round.

Then, from the semi-finals, only six finalists were chosen in the Johannesburg-leg to participate in the finals, this week, with the finals and the name of the winner to be announced on Friday, July 11.

For Pereira, this is an amazing experience, which he is so grateful to be part of.

“I get most of my inspiration from my parents,” he said.

“I also have a family member who is already working in the industry, so I was even more encouraged to enter the competition.”

Pereira not only has family within the industry to show him what it is like, but he has also completed job shadowing at the Intercontinental Hotel, where he received the opportunity to meet new people and learned how to tackle new challenges in different ways.

That was when he decided that becoming a hotel manager was what he wanted to do as his future career.

“I look forward to working hard during the boot camp – to show off my passion and managerial skills,” he said.