PROJECTS

SARN is involved locally with the following projects:

FLP | IMBALI | IDASA | ULWAZI | LETSEMENG | SHARE | BCO | VRCO

FAMILY LITERACY PROJECT (FLP)

The REFLECT approach was introduced into the Family Literacy Project (FLP) soon after its establishment in March 2000, in three rural areas in the Southern Drakensberg, namely Stepmore, Lotheni and Mpumlwane. These districts have little infrastructure and most houses are made of mud and thatch with no electricity or running water. The roads from the small towns of Underberg, Himeville and Creighton to these areas are poor, and the taxi and bus services erratic.

The aim of the FLP is to make literacy a shared and valuable activity for parents and young children.
The use of the REFLECT approach has helped the project achieve this aim as it helps with communication and provides opportunities to share relevant information as well as encouraging action around issues critical to the community.
Initial sessions concentrated on how parents could support the development of early literacy skills in their children. In the second year an adult literacy component was added and, in time, post-literacy activities for the parents were introduced, all the while keeping a focus on parent and child interactions around literacy.

The findings indicate that children and adults have benefited from the programme, and families now read, not only because they need to, but because it is relaxing and enjoyable.

In early 2006 the project recruited six women as facilitators in the Pholela area of KwaZulu Natal. An important part of their in-service training was a two-week workshop to introduce them to the REFLECT approach and train them in the use of participatory rural appraisal tools to conduct analysis of their sites. An indication of the way the REFLECT approach has been internalized by project staff is that one member was able to introduce it effectively to the new facilitators.

The project continues to use REFLECT in the Underberg and Centocow areas of the province in both the family literacy group attended by adults and the children’s groups run in primary schools. At the end of a unit on Voluntary Counselling and Testing for HIV introduced this year, the action decided on by group members was that they wanted to be tested; this was something that previously they were unwilling to do. We believe that the REFLECT approach was helpful in providing an opportunity for group members to share experiences and fears relating to the pandemic and that this created the awareness of the importance of knowing one’s status and led the decision to take action.

This project also offers opportunities for integrating a sustainable livelihoods approach in these poor rural communities.

Link to FLP website

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IMBALI

Kagiso, which means “peace”, is a West Rand township with a population of 190,000 people. It was officially proclaimed in 1920 when ex-miners and squatters on smallholdings on the outskirts of Luipaardsvlei erected the first corrugated iron houses. By 1950, there were about 3 436 people in the Luipaardsvlei Township, an area of only 47 morgen, until another new township - Lewisham - was laid out to the south-east of Mogale City ( a.k.a. Krugersdorp).

The area is subdivided in five different wards, with each having its own councillor. It includes the industrial district of Chamdor, which is home to more than 100 factories, a large mine workers’ hostel and three informal settlements. To the southeast of Kagiso are the settlements of Rietvallei and Azaadville.

IMBALI Kagiso Craft Training Centre is based in Sector 4 on Kagiso Avenue and serves all surrounding areas including Magaliesberg. Sector 4 is a large, densely populated section of Kagiso proper with a population of at least 50,000.

Imbali was founded on the following precepts:

• To work towards social and personal development through art and culture education training
• To enable learners to develop and communicate art and craft skills and knowledge
• To promote visual literacy and an awareness of our arts and cultural heritage.

Imbali is, therefore, involved in a number of art-education programmes targeting teachers, rural children, unemployed youth, inner city homeless street children and self-employed craft workers.

This project runs under the umbrella of the NGO Women for Peace (WFP) and works mostly with volunteers in the Gauteng area. They focus on literacy and income generation, especially with women. One project addresses women living in hostels. They are also keen to start REFLECT with street children. Being in a city area, these projects provide a wonderful opportunity for new insights on REFLECT and sustainable livelihoods in a non-rural setting.

Women for Peace IMBALI is a partner member of the South Africa REFLECT Network (SARN). IMBALI also has a partnership with the MAPPP Seta and the University of Witwatersrand. In the past IMBALI has worked with other Arts and Culture NGOs’, such as Moving Into Dance, Sibikwa and Artist Proof. The Department of Education has also requested IMBALI run training for them.

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IDASA

IDASA uses REFLECT primarily with youth to influence local government decision-making processes.

To build community capacity for participation in affairs of the Local Government sphere and around governance issues.

Emakhazeni (Highlands) Community Development (REFLECT) Project - Highlands Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa

Project Objective (according to 3-years plan):

• To enhance community participation in a wide range of cooperative governance initiatives, through building solid relationships with Government departments and other local organisations.
• To promote and increase sustained dialogue on local issues and make communities voices heard.
• To increase access to information and to encourage reading on different types of governance related materials.
• To build local government’s capacity to understand and commit themselves to engage with communities as well as creating an enabling environment that such participation can succeed and be sustainable.
• To provide information to the community on how to develop there own income generating projects for self-sustainability

Highlands community development (REFLECT) Project.
The project has been operating since 2001 in four communities, Dullstroom, Belfast, Machadodorp and Waterval Boven, in the Highlands municipal area, with the project's main partner being the Highlands Municipality. The project has developed relationships at a Provincial level with various departments such as the Department of Health, Department of Environment and Agriculture, Department of Arts and Culture, etc. The biggest challenge was building a relationship with the Provincial Department of Local Government and the Nkangala District Municipality and other Provincial Departments who should play a key role in the development of these communities. The main focus for the next three years is to build a strong relationship especially with the Provincial department of Local Government and the District Municipality, to ensure that the project gets the necessary support in order to fulfil what’s been stated in the White Paper on Local Government, which is to enhance community participation. During 2005, the project will ensure that a good relationship is created between the local structures and the project. This will ensure that work is not being duplicated in the community and the project will be tap in on other local structures information and skills. Community participation is an important element of a developmental local government and through building solid relationships at a local, provincial and district level the circles will be able to get more involved on issues concerning all three spheres mentioned above. The information received will then be ploughed back to the local level to capacitate communities on governance issues affecting them. As a result, communities will be able to make their voices heard and will create a better life for their communities.

IDASA will also play a key role in community workshops, tapping in on some of the programme's expertise to ensure that Idasa’s programmes filters in with the work that the circle is doing. Idasa has a great deal of expertise on governance issues, such as HIV/AIDS and governance, Government budgets, children’s budgets, conflict resolution and conflict management skills, just to mention a few. Through these workshops, circles will be capacitated on regional and global issues facing Africa as a whole, and to analyse the local problems with the regional issues.

Using REFLECT

Idasa adopted the REFLECT methodology in 2001 to capacitate communities around the Emakhazeni Local Municipality, formerly known as the Highlands Local Municipality in Mpumalanga. Mpumalanga is known to be the smallest province in South Africa, with various social problems such as unemployment, poverty, etc. Siyathuthuka (Belfast), Emthonjeni (Machadodorp), Sakhelwe (Dullstroom) and Emgwenya (Waterval Boven), are the locations where REFLECT circles are being implemented. The reason why Idasa targeted this specific municipal area is because of its urban-rural setting and the fact that, unlike some other communities, the structure of communities has not changed much since 1994. Additionally, there is a low level of understanding of the role of citizens, and a high level of poverty and unemployment in the area.
The main aim of the project is therefore “to build communities' capacity for participation in affairs of the local government sphere”. REFLECT is conceived as a citizenship education project and fits with Idasa’s aims of strengthening democracy in South Africa. Although all the facilitators and participants are keen to highlight REFLECT as a neutral structure, it is highly political in many ways. For example, the target groups in the project are mainly youth living in black locations (townships) – rather than the white dominated towns, and it aims to enhance the participants’ ability to engage with local government, with the ultimate aim of holding local government to account.

The benefits of using the REFLECT model in Idasa’s work is that the REFLECT circle provides a structure for debate and empowers people to engage with the local government. REFLECT is a methodology to encourage people to talk about issues and come up with solutions. It enables people to not depend on the government but to do things themselves. Through REFLECT, people become educated – and this flows from the circle to the rest of the community.

Impact on the communities

REFLECT has created a community structure that is very different from those previously existing in the locations. In areas where there are no REFLECT circles, the council often has a problem knowing how to mobilise the community – there is very low participation, and no formal structures for community participation. For example, if the council calls a community meeting on water, people don’t go or they don’t make their voices heard with respect to the issue. REFLECT has provided a space where people can talk, learn and act on an issue of concern, and therefore also empowers them to make their voices heard in community meetings.

The locations are traditionally quite isolated with poor transport links and little contact beyond the neighbouring towns. Another significant achievement of the REFLECT work, therefore, is that it has brought people together across the different locations. This was particularly important when the local government tried to increase the cost of rates and services, and through the coordinated effort of all circles, they managed to challenge the local council and the rates and service fees were not increased.

At first, the local municipality did not welcome the project with open hands, because they knew that through this process, the community will begin to challenge the council on various issues. One of the biggest challenges faced, was the lack of support from the local municipality towards the circles. Over time, however, the circles managed to build a good and solid relationship with the officials of the municipality and some of the ward councillors. The municipality understands the aim of the project and realises that it can help to ease the load of the municipality knowing that these circle’s can mobilise and consult the broader community on issues and problems, from which the circle can then than in turn provide relevant feedback to the Municipality.

The main focus of the project for the coming years is to get the surrounding farming areas involved in developing their own REFLECT circles. Based on research, the project found these areas still to be “behind” in terms of making their voices heard and participating in local government affairs. Therefore the project has decided to get these people involved to empower them in order to make their voices heard, because they are still seen as a “marginalised” section of the community.

Link to the IDASA website

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ULWAZI

Organisational history

ULWAZI was founded in 2002 by Nomveliso Tshazi with the goal to improve the lives of the people living in her community. Through facilitating discussion, cultural activities, and human development the organisation aims to tackle the major causes that inhibit development in the area, such as the spread of HIV/AIDS.

People have been continuously trained in Life Orientation, Home-Based Care, SMME and entrepreneurship, which has lead to participants now running spaza shops, saloons and butcheries.
Since 2002 ULWAZI has grown and received great recognition in the community, which it continues to build.

ULWAZI uses REFLECT to support youth and adults to face the challenges of living with HIV and AIDS in the Khayelitsha township, near Cape Town.

The project works with 80% youth, the elderly and disabled, with 280 members in 7 circles.

Issues tackled by this project include:

• HIV/AIDS
• Substance Abuse
• Rape
• Crime
• Unemployment
• Teenage Pregnancy
• Human Development
• Domestic Violence

ULWAZI Youth Cultural Organisation is currently operating in four different areas of Khayelitsha in the Western Cape. These areas are very poor and subject to the high rate of unemployment, a fast spread of HIV/AIDS, gangsterism, drug abuse, domestic violence as well as teenage pregnancy.

All the social and economic problems, the level of unemployment and the lack of skills in Khayelitsha mean that most people cannot afford to move elsewhere, implying social (im-)mobility. This impacts on the natural growth and development of the area, which has resulted in people largely needing to help themselves and finding themselves “trapped” amidst poverty. Moreover, poverty, low levels of education, poor access to services and a high residential density make Khayelitsha particularly prone to the threat and spread of HIV/AIDS and other related health problems.

In this environment a large number of the youth do not attend school and wonder the streets instead. Some are bedridden and some have psychiatric problems due to substance abuse. The ULWAZI project has gathered these youth together with the main objective of reducing the spread of the pandemic.

The ULWAZI Youth REFLECT Cultural Organisation aims:

1. To expose the youth to career paths
2. To ensure and show the community that youth can be skilled
3. To offer them the opportunities for qualitative improvement in their artistic and cultural expression and recreation
4. To analyse with the youth, ways of taking action to reduce the causes and effects of HIV/AIDS as well as work together to increase levels of sustainable self-empowerment

Future plans

ULWAZI seeks to acquire land and begin the building progress. This building will provide HIV/AIDS support services including voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), and a formal training programme to develop and educate community-based caregivers. In addition the building will be a base for income generating skills training and activities including beadwork, etc.

Furthermore ULWAZI plans to establish a multi-information center as well as to establish self-sustained garden plots which will not only be a source of income generation but also a source of nutritional “food parcels for people living with AIDS”. The project will provide agricultural training for a minimum of 10 people.
In addition, ULWAZI plans to introduce an advice center where community members can go for trauma support, such as rape, crime, domestic violence, child abuse and teenage pregnancy.

Finally, future activities will focus on securing income sources and the further development of its networks and partnerships.

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LETSEMENG REFLECT PROGRAMME

Letsemeng REFLECT programme consists of a learning circle in each of two towns – Petrusburg and Jacobsdal – which are two of the five rural towns that make up Letsemeng Local Municipality in the south west Free State. The area is very poor and subject to cyclical drought years, and the unemployment rate is approximately 40%. The main activities in this area are mining and agriculture, with some light industry and retail businesses.

Petrusburg

Petrusburg has a population of approximately 7000. It is situated 80 km to the south west of Bloemfontein which is its nearest large urban centre. The languages spoken are Setswana, English and Afrikaans. 80% of the population is black. The former white town and the black township are divided by 3 kilometres and the N8 road and the social divide between them is still very strong. The main activity is farming, with 3 large potato farms which provide seasonal employment to large numbers between December and March.

Jacobsdal

Jacobsdal has a population of five and a half thousand. Two thirds of the population is black. Jacobsdal is 157 kilometres to the south west of Bloemfontein, and its nearest urban centre is Kimberley, the capital of the northern Cape, which is 60 kilometres away. Black, coloured and white communities speak Afrikaans. Other languages spoken are Sesotho and English. Jacobsdal is a small farming town with goats, cattle, sheep and pig farming as well as production of sunflowers, mealies, wheat and groundnuts. In recent years two vineyards have opened which are doing well. The Landzicht wine estate has had a lot of money invested in it and is expanding, and in 2003 they installed a large bottling plant. The wine estate is creating jobs directly and is also attracting tourists to the area.

All the towns in Letsemeng have adult education programmes run by the Department of Education. The Departments of Labour and Agriculture will offer skills training to groups of five or more who have a viable business idea, and the Department of Agriculture has a Community Projects Fund Support Programme which has the aim of providing capital to low income households for agriculture or agricultural processing activities. Other than PHAPHAMANG (the Non-Profit Organisation which manages the LETSEMENG REFLECT PROGRAMME) there is no adult education NGO in the southern Free State. In fact, the southern Free State is a very neglected area in terms of NGO activity of any kind.

PHAPHAMANG

Up until 2005 Letsemeng REFLECT programme was managed by Learning for Development cc. During 2004, the coordinator for the Letsemeng REFLECT programme, Judy Scott-Goldman, was one of 5 directors who took the action of reviving a non-governmental organisation established in 1999 called Phaphamang. In 2005 the REFLECT programme was incorporated as one of the programmes to be managed by Phaphamang and in February 2005 a new part time coordinator, Xolile Mbi, was appointed.

Phaphamang’s origin is in a group of women coming together in 1998 to start income generating projects in Mangaung township, Bloemfontein. Phaphamang was registered as a section 21 company in 1999. From this time, the main work of Phaphamang has been in small business development.

Developments in the LETSEMENG REFLECT Programme

The Petrusburg learning circle had 18 members as of December 2005. Most are involved in some form of income generation activity such as motor car repairs, rearing broiler chickens, rearing pigs, managing small tuck shops, selling plates of food on pension day, plumbing and plastering work. Some have jobs. One person is a domestic worker, one does cleaning work for the municipality, others do piece work with the Working for Water programme and on the potato farms in the potato harvesting season. In 2004 participants worked through a series of units around the theme of developing and managing an income generating project or small business. In the second half of 2004 as a result of exposure visits in the circle, fourteen of the eighteen members developed the aim of establishing a backyard layer chicken project. Research into this project took place in the last quarter of 2004 and work to get this project planned, funded and implemented will be the chief business of the learning circle in 2005. The other 4 circle members who have opted not to be part of the chicken project are interested in growing garlic and other vegetables. It has been proposed that this group bring others together to form a second group that will develop actions around vegetable growing. Petrusburg is also facing a chronic water shortage which the groups will need to address.

The Jacobsdal group had 10 regular members in December 2004. Many of these members have tuckshops. Two also cut hair for an income and one sews. The 10 have also formed a group which wants to have layer chickens but are looking to establish a larger commercial project. They have succeeded in being allocated a plot of land by the municipality. In a planning session for 2005, taking forward the chicken project was identified as the highest priority. Other goals are understanding how to do book keeping and all the legal issues affecting small businesses. Two women also requested support to approach Eskom and other funders for a grant to buy equipment for their individual sewing and juice businesses.

3 year project objective

To see an increased number of people in the municipality of Letsemeng being equipped with the knowledge, confidence and skills to initiate and sustain actions which will lead to more sustainable livelihoods for themselves and the wider community.

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SHARE

Summary of Project

Overall goal: Improve the living standards and livelihoods of youth and women within the Cassablanca community (Strand, Western Cape) through interventions such as raising awareness of HIV and AIDS, general social, health and education issues.
Indicators (according to 3-year plan)

• Increased number of participants in children’s circle
• Improved pass rate of children in schools
• Number of children attending school aftercare facility
• Increased number of women participating in meetings and activities
• Improved care facilities within community, particularly with regard to HIV and AIDS care
• Reported examples of people disclosing their HIV status

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BCO

Bushbuckridge Community Organisation

This Community Based Organisation based on the outskirts of the Kruger National Park serves to empower women through natural resource based activities to improve their livelihoods.
The Programme uses the REFLECT methodology for the programmes and activities.

The Programme director helps in training the facilitator while one of the facilitators Ms Sylvia Mathebula helps as a fieldworker. Ten community facilitators help in facilitating the circles.

In the beginning of the programme the local traditional chiefs felt threatened by the reaction of the women, and they threatened to burn the programme. The Coordinator with the assistance of an individual secretary of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere had to focus most of their time on meetings to try and clarify the misunderstanding.

Most of the women started taking part in community issues and often challenged the community leaders on issues affecting the community others became so active that they got lead roles as community leaders.
Most of the youth facilitators became so competent that they got formal employment - some as Community Development Workers for either the municipality or the Department of Welfare.
The most effective part of REFLECT is the social part where the participants learn to do things together as a team, priorities, plan and implement together.

Funding is still the biggest challenge of the Organisation.

Monitoring both the facilitation and income generating activities is a challenge for the REFLECT process itself. Facilitators still fail to link this two.
This challenge was addressed during the facilitator’s refresher training and it is hoped the facilitators will do better.

Losing the facilitators or the best participants to formal employment is also one of the biggest challenges.
Already Lindiwe from Islington got a formal job with Imbali a local Lodge, Merrium Seepane was also employed by the Kruger National park, and Cecilia and Sekome Caster are both employed by Tintswalo Game Lodge inside the Kruger National Park. Although this impact negatively on the programme itself, it had attracted more participants hoping to find jobs after attending the circle classes.

This also led to new partnership formed with Africa foundation which is a programme for CCAfrica to reach communities; the programme officer is willing to support some of the organization’s community programmes. Buffelshoek Trust is also a trust formed by concessions within the Kruger National park for community Development. The possibility of the partnership is still on the table being discussed by both the Organisation and possible partners facilitated by the Southern African Wildlife College.

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VRCO

Vukuzenzele means 'wake up and do it for yourself' and Vukuzenzele REFLECT Community Organisation (VRCO) is using REFLECT to empower themselves and facilitate community participation and sustainable development in Orange Farm. Although the use of REFLECT for VRCO’s programmes was launched through the impetus and funding support of the German Adult Education Association, IIZ/DVV, one of the major outcomes of the process has been the formation of an autonomous community-based organisation (CBO). As a result, VRCO is using REFLECT as a tool for organizational and community development. This has attracted wider community interest in VRCO’s programmes. Because local people have meaningfully assessed their problems, and designed and implemented their own solutions, community ownership of the CBO is a living reality and sustainability of their development initiatives over the long term is a question of little concern.

How did they take control?

Seven VRCO community members were first introduced to REFLECT in 2003. At that time, the members were endeavoring to address the socio-economic impacts of HIV and AIDS in their community by raising awareness of how HIV impacts on development and vice versa. Unfortunately, the NGO that they were operating under folded in early 2004. So several community members who had been trained as REFLECT facilitators took the decision to set up their own CBO.
This group of seven facilitators used REFLECT to develop their constitution and to make decisions about how they wanted to structure their CBO. They successfully recruited a group of volunteers with technical expertise in project management and development work to serve with them as members on their Board. They attracted the services of a prestigious firm of lawyers to act on their behalf on a pro-bono basis who helped to formally register the organisation and provide on-going legal advice. They also persuaded an auditing company to provide financial services on a pro-bono basis. In addition, the organisation has attracted funding from several sources who took interest in their use of REFLECT and/or their stated objectives and planned activities.

At the same time, the VRCO members introduced REFLECT to their community and began the process of identifying the key issues affecting people’s lives. This baseline research formed the starting point for developing a 3-year Strategic Plan where local facilitators used REFLECT tools to develop their strategic plan over a 3-day period and share their outputs with their existing circle members for further consolidation.

From planning to implementation

VRCO are now implementing their strategic plan and monitoring and evaluating their progress through meetings, discussion forums and an open door feedback policy. By the end of 2005 the organisation was working with just over 120 members and they had established the following projects:

• A food security agricultural project which is selfsustaining “due to the interest and support of the wider community”;
• A home-based care service which reached 15 households with people with terminal and mental illnesses, including people living with AIDS and aims to reach 100 people by mid 2006;
• A sewing and crafts project which attracted “regular orders for products, especially aprons, from other local organisations and community members”; and,
• A youth arts, dance and drama group who “use their talents to share their learnings from discussions during their REFLECT circle meetings with wider community audiences”.

The facilitators, who all live in the informal settlement of Orange Farm near Johannesburg are proud of the success of their organisation. Bongane Radebe, Project Coordinator says: “We are extremely pleased at the success and achievements of VRCO. The prospect of expanding our activities is not just a great step forward for our organisation but will bring even more opportunities for people in Orange Farm to participate in making their own decisions regarding their own future development and progress.”

VUKUZENZELE - "Doing it for ourselves"

The food gardens grew out of the Phaphama Agricultural REFLECT circle. The group wanted to focus on agriculture to help meet the needs of HIV+ people and people living with AIDS. The project not only provides people with a source of nutrition (they grow a lot of spinach and beetroot), but also the opportunity to generate income.

The project became self-sustaining within its first three months of operation, after a small start up grant of R1 000 from Vukuzenzele. The core group of 5 people use REFLECT to plan their project, find solutions to problems, and to discuss their own priorities both at home and in the circle.

The Phaphama REFLECT Circle also has close links with the Siyaphambili Health REFLECT Circle — a group of about 30 women who offer home based care services to the community. The Siyaphambili group identifies people that need help to get a vegetable garden at home going. Phaphama members will then do the physical labour for those people too sick to tend their own garden, or they will go and teach people who are physically strong enough how to get their own vegetable garden going and take care of it. They also provide a proportion of their crops for free to those people in the later stages of a terminal illness. Everything the REFLECT circles do is down to their own planning and agreed actions through REFLECT – it’s the same for the Siyaphambili group – they chose to set up the HBC service themselves in response to basic needs. Here, a caregiver from Siyaphambili pays a home visit to Nomasonto — a single mother of four children. Nomsanto is only 35 years old and is living with AIDS. She is worried about who will care for her children when she is gone.

Conclusion

VRCO has demonstrated the power of REFLECT as a tool for organisational development and management. Here the participatory principles and philosophy of REFLECT are not confined to a specific project but have become an integral part of the day-to-day running of the organisation. This approach fosters community ownership and sustainability because those involved in running the organisation together with the wider community all participate meaningfully in decisions about how the organisation operates.

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