David Macfarlane
The future of a charitable organisation that provides therapy for the disabled hangs in the balance firstly because the local council mistakenly sold the land it occupies, and secondly because the buyer, Australian university Monash South Africa, appears unwilling to resolve the matter.
The highveld branch of the South African Riding for the Disabled Association (Sarda), a registered charity, has for more than a decade been based on about 2ha of land in Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg.
Since the late 1980s the branch has steadily developed what was originally arid veld, to provide therapy for mentally and physically disabled children and adults. It has survived on the work of volunteers, and on donations and fund-raising.
But last year the Roodepoort council sold the land as part of a 100ha deal to South Africa’s newest foreign university, Monash South Africa despite the existence of signed agreements between Sarda and the council on use and development of the land.
The inclusion of the 2ha in the sale to Monash was “an oversight of council officials”, says Roslynn Greeff, an African National Congress councillor based in Roodepoort for the Greater Johannesburg Metro Council.
When the error surfaced late last year, Sarda immediately approached Monash in an attempt to clarify the situation, but multiple letters and meetings have failed to resolve anything.
Monash says it is “fully appreciative of Sarda’s efforts and objectives and is actively discussing ways and means of assisting the organisation, which could even include access to additional Monash land … In the meantime Sarda enjoys rent-free occupation of the land.” Sarda says, though, that it has always paid rates on the land and continues to do so.
Children from The Gateway School for the disabled and adults from the Selwyn Segal Hostel are among those the riding school caters for. “Half an hour on a horse provides the equivalent of three hours’ physiotherapy,” says Eleanor Woodman, Sarda’s national vice-president.
Relocating the school would cost about R1-million, and Sarda cannot afford that, Woodman says. She says the ideal solution, and one that Greeff, who is assisting Sarda in its negotiations, endorses, would be for Monash simply to lease the 2ha to Sarda at a nominal rental, and perhaps reach a reciprocal agreement whereby Monash students have access to the Sarda facilities.