Community Building

Masakane Project
Meaning “We all grow together”, the Masakane project is designed to work through shared ownership with the villages and communities in the Mbashe area. It is only through this two-way approach that local communities can increase their stake-holder interest to achieve a level of self-sustainability, focussing on community building through partnerships between the residents, students, the local authorities, public bodies, utilities and the Donald Woods Foundation.

Adult Education
This programme is designed to help educate adults in the daily functions which most affect their lives – from literacy, language, writing skills, numeracy, to money management and business skills. With schools at the centre of the programme, success depends on the development of these schools, not only to enhance the education of pupils but also to use the schools as centres of education for the whole community.

Food Gardens
In addition to academic education, the bedrock of community-building is people’s working lives, with a focus on vocational skills in rural daily life, from water and irrigation methods to micro-farming. This will be a region-specific project, focussing on the needs of the community and opportunities for advancement. This project can operate at a number of levels, from individual door-size projects, to school, village and community level projects.

Enterprise Initiatives
Through increased capacity, the Foundation aims to expand its project work to include an assessment of the potential avenues for small-scale businesses in the area and to assist where possible. Initial avenues of opportunity may include arts and crafts for tourism and retail, growth, distribution and sales of produce and methods of generating income.

Health and Safety in the community
This programme includes the provision of access to materials and information relating to wider issues of personal health and safety issues and awareness within the community. Such issues would be at the behest of those living in the community, and range from personal health, diet, nutrition, childbirth, domestic violence, sexual health, behaviour and violence, awareness of rights under the law, access to health / health provision / health centres, etc.

Community Sport Initiatives
Working firmly within the policy of the Masakane Project, these initiatives are designed to build a sense of community as well as shared ownership of wider projects linked to the project. Building esteem, quality of life, confidence and a sense of community are key ingredients that are fundamental to the success of projects in education, health and wider community-building in general.