By Aphiwe Ngowapi
On 28 July, development agency Kagiso Trust held an awards ceremony for 20 out of 25 Makhandans who participated in and completed two workshops: the Capacity Building and Asset Based Community-Led Development (ABCD), which took place between 24 April and 27 July this year. The purpose of the workshop interventions was to strengthen and support Makhanda East’s civil society.
Kagiso Trust’s goal is to work towards “a prosperous, peaceful, equitable and just society”. They also wish to overcome poverty “By developing and implementing scalable, replicable, sustainable development programme models in the areas of education development, institutional capacity building, socio-economic development, and financial sustainability,” reads their website.
The two workshops held during the ceremony were to impart Kagiso Trust’s vision for South African Communities.
During the awards ceremony, ABCD facilitator Mike Makwela quoted the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who once said, “Social activism is necessary for democracy and development to flourish”. Makwela added that ABCD prides itself in helping the community and uses Tutu’s words as motivation to use whatever they can with what people know. Makwela added that their work is in line with the National Development Plan of 2030, which states that “The state cannot merely act on behalf of the people; it has to act with the people for the advancement of poor communities”.
One of the programme’s participants, Noziphiwo Zumani, said that after the training, they learned to see solutions rather than problems. “Even the attitude changes when you have knowledge. When you have been fully informed, you will have someone to walk with you on a journey that you thought was unwalkable. It gives you confidence; it gives you power, ” said Zumani. Among other skills, the participants were also taught about the South African Constitution, together with their rights and responsibilities.
Before they could start the workshops, Capacity Building and ABCD, a sensitisation workshop was done with Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) to help shape the content of both interventions and request consent and agreement on approach, scope, framework, and methodologies. Also, the CSO pilots focus on the leaders and emerging leaders within their prospective organisations.
The first workshop, Capacity Building, was held from 24 April to 13 July 2023. This workshop involved the training of Makhanda East’s NPOs to manage their organisations effectively and strengthen their community intervention programs. With the input provided by local NPOs, training programs were developed to identify the needs and offers of the community. Makana East is the pilot case study, and this intervention is based on piloting the Civil Society Support Programme (CSSP) capacity Development framework.
The second workshop, ABCD, was held from 12 June to 27 July 2023. This is where training and mapping were conducted through a participatory community-based research approach. This allows CSOs to map existing resources and capacities within Makana East Community, including from the municipality, such as Local Economic Development. The community has agreed upon the scope and reach of the programme. The intervention process also forms part of the integrated skill development within the community.
Makwela said that the ABCD is an approach to sustainable community-driven approach. It mobilises communities to act and recognises that everyone has a gift. “When we created a safe space for participants to speak,” he said.
To illustrate his point, Makwela told the audience the story of a young man who lost out on the opportunity to play for one of the biggest teams in the country because of testing positive for alcohol in his system. Makwela adds that the story of the young man shows that had he had adequate support, he could have become a prominent player in the country.
Makwela concluded his speech with words of encouragement. “We are leaders of today, not tomorrow. We are assets, not liabilities. We are the solutions, not a problem to solve,” he said.
