The Goedgedacht Trust

Introduction

The Goedgedacht Trust runs a rural development Centre; 87 km north of Cape Town on the slopes of a small mountain range called the Kasteelberg. This old and beautiful Cape Dutch farm, dating from 1704 is 171 ha in extent, and now offers itself as a resource to the surrounding Swartland/West Coast area for development initiatives.

The Trust is registered as a Charitable and Educational Trust (T965/93) in terms of the Non Profit Organisations Act as No.006/582. and as a Public Benefit Company which allows individual donors some tax relief on receipt of donation to the Trust.

The Trust was registered in 1993. It took 3 years to renovate and upgrade the buildings and the Centre really started in 1996 with the appointment of full-time staff.

Visit the Goedgedacht Trust website at www.goedgedacht.org.za

The flagship programme of the Trust, the Path out of Poverty (POP) programme for farm workers and their children started in 1998 and celebrates its 10^th anniversary on 31st January 2009.

The Philosophy of the Trust.

The Trust is concerned with issues of poverty as it effects the lives of the rural poor. It is particularly interested in the needs and aspirations of new farmers and farm workers from previously disadvantaged communities.

The philosophy of the Trust is very simply to:

• Build People
• Strengthen Community
• Promote Democracy

The Trust operates at three levels: Local, Regional and National

Local Interventions.

The Path out of Poverty Programme.

We are at present working on 32 farms and touching the lives of 1298 individuals.

The farm workers in this region have been trapped in poverty for many generations. Many of todays problems were caused originally by the dop system where labourers were paid part of their wage in wine. This has now been outlawed but the results remain. The effects of poverty are evident everywhere, poor education, alcoholism, violence to women and children, very high rates of children born with foetal alcohol syndrome, lack of self-esteem and skills amongst young people, men and women, shockingly high rates of TB and now increasingly HIV/AIDS all take their toll on the quality of life of children.

The vision of the POP  programme is a healthy, self confident, well trained farm worker community. We concentrate on building the self esteem, capacity and skills of the youth, the next generation, in order to help them avoid repeating the damaging behaviour of the generations before them.

Our experience has been that one good project does not help people break the stranglehold of poverty. We have therefore, over the past 10 years, put in place an integrated community development model which is made up of a number of (currently 17) interlocking projects which farm workers and their children can access at any point.

There are four golden threads which weave their way throughout the POP Programme, these are:

1. Education
2. Health
3. Personal Development
4. Love and Care for the Planet

The bottom line is that we do everything possible to “KEEP CHILDREN IN SCHOOL for as long as possible and help them during this time to heal, strengthen and reach their individual potential.

The programme includes the following projects:

• Parenting skills training.
• A baby unit for vulnerable children
• a specialiased creche and pre-school (with special attention being given to the problems caused by Foetal Alcohol Syndrome and Foetal Alcohol Effect. (62 children entered in 2008.)
• a Youth Project -weekly and holiday programmes for farm youth. (139 children this past Christmas holiday.)
• an educational support project offers school fees, uniforms, school stationery, warm clothing etc for farm children and those orphaned by AIDS.
• Self development workshops for men and for women (farm workers)
• Community activities, choir competitions, sports days. HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention courses.
• After school educational support for children. 5 days a week 4-6pm Library, access to computers. Homework supervising. (64 children). Hot meals, showers, life skills, comfort and encouragement.
• Home Based Care Training . 15 trained carers in the community
• So far we have 8 Safe Houses for children on farms where trained farm good women who have been trained in Home Based Caring Skills look after orphans and vulnerable children over weekends when parents are drinking and become abusive, keeping them safe from harm and offering them shelter, food and a caring environment. .
• Food security + 850 hungry pre-schoolers from 9 different pre-schools and sites getting a daily bowl of e-pap a highly nutritious porridge.
• The Valley Deli run by older youth makes sandwiches for 94 children each day before they leave on the school bus. A hot meal is provided each afternoon for 64 children attending the after-school project.
• Organic Vegetable Gardens providing fresh food for pre-school and after school project as well as offering training in vegetable gardening.
• Community Cycles. (BEN The Bicycle Empowerment Project) Repairs and sells bicycles at low cost to rural dwellers to encourage health and rural mobility.
• Sport. The Valley Eagles Rugby and Netball Club has nearly 90 members and involves members and the community in sport including more recently Indigenous Games.
• Documentation. A community worker is employed to visit farms and help farm workers to get the documents  (birth certificates for their children, Identity documents for themselves) in order to access social grants such as the Child Support Grant, Foster Care Grants, Old Age pensions.
• Saving groups being started on farms and in two small rural towns in the district.
• LOOP Weltevreden se Doen en Late. A photo story book. 15 000 printed each month and distributed to the poorest farm workers in the Western Cape.

Each edition addresses an issue important to rural people. Brings literacy skills to farm workers as well as information.

2008 was the 10^th anniversary of the Path out of Poverty Programme. During that time nearly 2000 children have had their lives touched by the programme.

There have been some modest successes. Whereas 95% of children dropped out of school by the fifth year of education when we started, we now keep children in school until they reach their highest potential. We have had 11 of our young people pass their Matric Examination (Grade 12), there has been a 5% drop out of children on the programme. The second area where we have seen a profound change has been by almost totally eliminating early teenage pregnancies which were very common before we started with POP.

Encouraged by these results we have embarked upon an expansion plan for POP youth centres.

After ten years of work on the POP programme for rural youth the Goedgedacht Trustees have approved an expansion plan which will work to replicate certain aspects of the POP model programme in other areas where similar situations of rural poverty exist.

Our vision for the next ten years is 10 000 rural children helped onto the Path out of Poverty from five rural POP centres.

At present we have the following areas in our sights:

• Goedgedacht Farm. (The mother-house of the POP programme)
• Riebeek Kasteel. Esterhof. The first POP youth centre of the Goedgedacht outreach programme has been built here and will open in September 2009..
• Riebeek West. We are negotiating for land. Community enumeration done. Land has been identified and we are looking for R250 000 to buy it and will then build the next POP youth Centre.
• Elandskloof. Cedarberg. Enumeration completed. Lease on an old building being negotatied with Dept of Lands and the community.
• Ga Phasha. Near Burgersfort, Eastern Limpopo. Feasibility study done. Enumeration done. Funded by Xstrata Mining.

Local Climate Change Projects.

As young people – the next generation are our priority it seems right that the Goedgedacht Trust should also have an abiding interest in climate change and the future of our world, for without it there would be no future for our children.

We aim to make Goedgedacht farm carbon neutral as soon as we can and are experimenting with a range of energy options – solar panels on all our buildings, a bio-digester which is producing methane for cooking in the Conference Centre at Goedgedacht, earth brick making and wonder bags.

We are in the process of building a climate change path which will take visitors and particularly school groups through a range of energy saving options – wonderbags, light up your house, fog harvesting, organic veg growing, climate change plants , olive processing etc.

We hope that organisations and individuals will visit Goedgedacht and learn from the lessons that we will uncover as we go ahead.

Regional interventions

In response to needs in the broader community of the West Coast Swartland region the Trust has nurtured a number of projects at Goedgedacht some of which are now independent and operating from the nearby town of Malmesbury. These are:

• The West Coast Community Foundation. Capacity building and grant making for small community organisations. Also independent now and operating from Malmesbury.

• GOFA . The Goedgedacht Olive Farmers Association funded by the Dutch Postal code Lottery is involving emerging farmers in the olive industry . At present 64 farmers are growing olives with Goedgedacht support and backup;.

• C3 Climate Change Crops. A new project started in 2008 is introducing the concept of climate change to emerging farmers and giving them information and advice on appropriate crops for a region that will become drier and hotter.
• The last two quoted projects are supported by an Equipment Pool housed at Goedgedacht farm and supported by the regional co-op Agri WesKaap .

National

South Africa is a fragile new democracy. It needs constant strengthening on every possible level. It needs vigilance. It needs critical debate on issues of national importance.

Goedgedacht’s response has been:

• The Goedgedacht Forum for Social Reflection which every second month brings together policy makers, planners and people of differing opinions at Goedgedacht farm to debate and discuss issues of national importance.

Themes of the past years have been around the economy, poverty, education, crime and this year the focus will be on sustainable development and the upcoming elections.

A record of recent debates can be found on the internet at www.goedgedachtforum.co.za

90% x 2030. Goedgedacht Trust climate change project run from an office in Cape Town sets up 90×2030 clubs for youth targeting affluent schools and striving to conscientise them to climate change and show them how to measure their carbon footprint.

www.project90x2030.org.za

Long Term Sustainability of the Goedgedacht Trust’s Projects.

From the start the Trustees have had a plan for the long-term sustainability of its work. At present we still have to rely on donors and friends from overseas and from South Africa. Our Conference and Workshop Centre at the farm (we have 67 beds and a beautiful Chapel where we host baptisms, weddings and funerals).

Produces an annual income which covers some of the trusts running costs.

The Goedgedacht Olive Peace Grove will bring in the income we need to continue our projects in perpetuity. So far nearly 9000 olive trees have

been planted over 27 hectares from which we harvested 60 tons of olives in 2007.

A very good Extra Virgin Olive Oil is made on the farm from our own olive press. We have also introduced a range of Naturally infused fruit Vinegars which we are very proud of and have been launched into Pick n Pays across the Western Cape. Goedgedacht Food Services cc has been tasked with the Marketing, Sales and Distribution of Goedgedachts products and things are going really well. We anticipate making our first profit from Goedgedacht Trading Pty Ltd this year.

Friends of Goedgedacht support this project by donating an olive tree at R300.00. For this they get an olive tree and the opportunity to make a 16 word dedication, which is cast in metaland put up on a dedication wall in the Olive Peace Grove. Dedications are blessed at a service which takes place in the olive grove twice a year.

Future plans involve the planting of another 18 hectares of olive groves in order to ensure that the projects of the Trust continue into the future.

Accounts.

The finances of the Trust are audited annually by Cameron and Prentice Accountants. Our books are open for scrutiny and we would be happy to send you a copy of our Annual Review and Audited Statement should you wish to have one

Anne Templeton
Director