Photo by the Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT)
By Dr Joanne Harding, Executive Director, SCAT
Community-based organisations (CBOs) play a pivotal role in addressing multifaceted challenges that impact society. CBOs have a unique understanding of society’s challenges and the opportunities available to them. They are deeply embedded in their local communities and can drive positive change at a grassroots level. The Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT), an organisation that has nearly four decades of experience in providing localised funding and support, recognises that we must support CBOs’ efforts to address challenges such as climate change, gender inequality and youth empowerment.
SCAT focuses on supporting CBOs in rural areas in South Africa. We identified that development in rural areas is not only a humanitarian imperative but also a strategic investment in creating a more equitable, stable, and prosperous society. South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world with a stark divide between urban and rural areas. Rural areas lack access to basic services, education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. The poverty headcount ratio in rural areas is 81.3% as compared to urban areas where it is 40.7% (StatSA 2017).
SCAT currently has 63 rural CBO partners across five of the nine provinces in South Africa. One of these is Port St. Johns Advice Office (PSJAO). PSJAO was set up in 1992 by a group of women who were concerned about the many retrenchments of mine workers who were not able to access their employment benefits. This organisation is run by Nomboniso Gaya who worked as a switchboard operator at a company next to the community-based advice office and became inspired by their work helping the community, so she jumped at the opportunity to become a paralegal in 1996. She shares in her personal story of leadership her early excitement at helping a client claim three months’ notice pay after being unfairly dismissed.
This organisation has gone on to work on gender-based violence (GBV), promoting gender equality, and building resilience to climate change. Gender inequality remains a persistent concern for PSJAO, so it has been running programmes to create awareness of GBV in the community and the rights of people who are survivors. PSJAO also supports individual women to access protection orders and navigate the legal system when they have been violated. SCAT provides funding, mentorship, organisational development training and support to PSJAO and Nomboniso has attended SCAT workshops on Understanding Gender and GBV and on GBV and the Law.
Climate change is another issue that poses unprecedented threats to the environment, economies, and livelihoods across South Africa. SCAT has been running a programme in partnership with SAFCEI (Southern African Faith Communities Environmental Institute) and Heinrich Boell Foundation with funds from the European Union called Rural Action for Climate Resilience. PSJAO is one of the organisations that has received funding, training and technical support through this action for their climate change project. This project includes creating awareness of climate change and its effects, particularly for women and children. SCAT has been teaching the community how to adapt to a changing climate by using permaculture methods in small-scale agriculture and improving water management. Through this climate change project, PSJAO has also received micro-grants for their awareness work and a core grant for three different food gardening sites and a bee-keeping project. SCAT also provided technical support for this project from a permaculture expert who has been teaching them techniques to increase the resilience of their projects.
Youth are often referred to as the leaders of tomorrow. SCAT has recognised the important role of young people in advancing social justice in their communities. To strengthen the contribution of youth we have been running a youth development programme which focuses on developing the leadership and entrepreneurship skills of youth that are involved in the CBOs we fund. This has resulted in young people raising money in their communities and receiving matching rewards from SCAT. These funds have been used to re-grant to youth-focused initiatives in their localities including small enterprises, sports groups, and cultural groups. Representatives of these groups attended a Youth Indaba (South African Xhosa word for conference) run by SCAT which was used to inform our support to young people. CBOs have proven to provide an important platform for young people to contribute meaningfully to their communities and learn valuable skills that can be used in other areas of their lives and careers.
Providing localised support requires tailoring resources, expertise, and guidance to the unique needs of each CBO in their different contexts. For SCAT this means knowing and understanding the context. Our programme officers are important players in connecting the strategy of our organisation to the realities on the ground. We recognise the inherent diversity of challenges faced by people in different localities and that one-size-fits-all solutions are ineffective. This often challenges our own practice and means we are constantly reviewing our assumptions. By providing targeted support both financial and non-financial we can enhance the capacity of CBOs to drive meaningful change.
Our model is a combination of financial, mentorship, technical support, and capacity building. Funding includes core grants for the operational costs of the CBOs we support, micro-grants for projects or initiatives of our partners, grants for infrastructure such as fencing, equipment and seeds and matching rewards for local fundraising. We also offer mentorship which happens on and off-site from a programme officer who is also responsible for identifying where technical expertise is required. Similarly, capacity building focuses on building the individuals within an organisation and the institution. One of our programmes to build individuals is Women in Leadership (WiL) through which women receive training in leadership and life coaching. A product of this programme is a publication telling the leadership stories of women.
While the concept of localised support holds immense promise there are also challenges such as adequate, ongoing funding for long-term sustainability. Most of the CBOs SCAT supports are 90% reliant on us for core funding. This is a frustration to bringing about transformative change and requires collaborative advocacy to promote the role of these organisations in philanthropy and encourage governments to provide ongoing consistent and reliable funding. Capacity building is another challenge as rural CBOs are often removed from opportunities that nurture their growth and effectiveness. Despite these challenges, these organisations remain catalysts for transformation, and we must work with them to leverage their deep connection to their communities to develop context-specific solutions and foster resilience, empowerment and lasting impact as we navigate complex global issues to build a better future.
Joanne Harding holds a PhD in Public Law from the University of Cape Town. She has been involved with SCAT since 1998 when she was employed as a fieldworker/trainer which was followed by a series of promotions to senior fieldworker/researcher in 2000, field manager in 2002 and communications director in 2004, before being appointed SCAT Director in 2006.
To get first access to our blogs every month, subscribe to our newsletter here.