Vibrant and sustainable communities in rural South Africa: this is the vision of the Social Change Assistance Trust (Scat), an award-winning human rights NGO with a mission to empower the rural poor, strengthen civil society and promote social change by working in partnership with local development agencies (LDAs) in rural communities.
The trust was initiated by its three founder trustees subsequent to discussions with members of the Norwegian government and the Church of Norway who used to visit the country during the dark years of apartheid.
The discussions were out of concern for the high levels of poverty, lack of access to resources and violations of human rights in the country, especially in rural areas.
Scat has been in existence for 20 years and supports 60 rural organisations in the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape, the Free State and North West provinces.
The trust works with rural community-based organisations that focus on human rights, gender equity, HIV/Aids and local economic development and are managed by elected members of the communities they serve. They are held stringently accountable to their communities through the organisation’s constitutions and annual general meetings.
In most instances these organisations are advice offices which, in addition to offering paralegal advice to members of the community, also deal with issues of local government service delivery, accessibility of social security, land tenure and redistribution, income generation and job creation, protection of employment rights, women’s empowerment and the protection of other minority groups in the communities where they work.