Rob Davies
For the majority of South Africa’s rural communities change is a slow process sometimes so slow that catching up becomes almost impossible.
Old Mutual’s rural economic development initiative (REDI) aims to address this problem through the development of rural communities in partnership with the communities themselves and the Small Business Project a Section 21 company.
Kate Miszewski, manager of the Old Mutual Foundation, explains the aims of the initiative. “The REDI model comprises 18 communities in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, the Northern Province, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape, and distributes funding in excess of R9-million an annum.
“The model contains 2,6-million people in rural, peri-urban and urban areas and is in line with the government policy on rural development.
“Our aim is to empower these communities and stimulate growth.”
Funding from the REDI model is spread over three focus areas: local economic development, education and welfare.
Under local economic development, the REDI model has made funding worth R2,6-million available to communities. This is broken up into two main groups.
About R600 000 has been made available for national and regional workshops with the aim of improving financial and entrepreneurial skills as well as project- management skills.
A second R2-million business-grant fund provides seed funding for new and existing viable small businesses.
“We are trying to keep the flow of money inside communities. We needed to find out what goods communities buy from outside sources and find a way to make their rand work most effectively inside the community,” says Miszewski.
Education is the second main focus area, and to this end R5-million has been made available in two programmes.
The first, amounting to a R2-million grant, is a mathematics programme targeted at primary school learners. This programme has been outsourced to the Maths Centre for Professional Teachers and the Rhodes University Maths Education Programme. This initiative brings teachers together for development workshops, provides mathematical teaching aids and also pays support visits to classrooms.
The Schools Regeneration Programme amounts to a R3-million matching grant scheme, which aims to “encourage schools to rebuild, restore and renew their commitment to education”.
“Many of the schools included in the initiative are in a bad state of disrepair. Once again, we do not give for the sake of giving, but rather encourage schools to raise as much as they can. We will then match that amount up to maximum of R10 000.
REDI’s focus on welfare takes the form of a R1,4-million grant to combat the impact of HIV/Aids and also to alleviate malnutrition and poverty.
“A pilot HIV/Aids ‘train the trainer’ programme has been put in place to educate communities on HIV/Aids. By being proactive in educating both children and adults we can slow down the spread of the disease,” says Miszewski.
“In some instances the elderly are the only people left to care for Aids orphans and there we encourage communities to establish vegetable gardens to fight malnutrition and also as a means of generating funds. Simultaneously, funding is provided for boreholes, water pumps and tanks.”
In most communities, however, needs vary. One community may be in need of clean water, while electricity might be a more pressing need at another. In any event, the lines between private and public initiative sometimes get blurred.
“In one case, the government built a fully-equipped clinic for a community with no electricity. Generators were supplied, but the community was too poor to buy petrol. In this case a borehole would have been a far better solution,” says Miszewski.
“The only way we can empower communities is by meeting their needs holistically.”