Ikamva Labantu is a non-profit organization that assists communities to effectively co-ordinate and organise various projects, ensuring that they are sustainable and viable. These projects cover a broad spectrum of services to the community including Early Childhood Development, Youth Programmes, family services, elderly people as well as skills development.

Ikamva Labantu leads the Community Creation project and it is this project that is producing a monthly order of Tati bears. Community Creations employs disadvantaged people and teaches them valuable skills in sewing and beading. This in turn provides valuable funds for families that may struggle to find employment elsewhere.

If you would like to find out more about Ikamva Labantu, then please call them on 021 461 8338.

We would love to get more community projects involved in manufacturing Tati for Baby Sense, so if you know of any other charity organizations that is equipped and would benefit from this sort of work, then please contact Charmaine on 0861 114 891 or charmaine@babysense.co.za

 

---

History

In the late 1960’s at the height of South African Apartheid, Helen Lieberman and other community social activists responded to the unjust socio-political conditions by setting up survival initiatives in the Western Cape. This led to a groundswell of similar initiatives being established in other parts of the country. Due to this growth it became necessary to formalise the coordination of these initiatives. In 1992, Ikamva Labantu (The Future of our Nation) was launched as a non-governmental and non-profit organisation.

Vision
Self-reliant and sustainable Community Based Organisations facilitating positive social change.


Mission
To build the capacity of affiliated Community Based Organisations to achieve effective and efficient delivery of Ikamva Labantu 4 core services, which are

1. Primary Health Interventions
2. Education and Skills Development
3. Food Security and Enterprise Development
4. Land & Buildings

Governance
Ikamva Labantu is governed by an independent non-executive board made up of leaders from the projects we serve as well as members from the private sector. This board has created 4 sub-committees to effectively execute its oversight functions. They are:

• Strategy
• Fundraising
• Accounts and Audit
• Remuneration

All funds donated to the organisation are received into an independent Donor Trust. The trust is governed by independent trustees who oversee the transference of the funds to Ikamva Labantu against pre-approved requisitions for programmes and running costs.


Ikamva Labantu programmes
Ikamva Labantu works with and assists affiliated Community Based Organisations serving various sections of the population – children, youth, adults, families, seniors and the disabled. These programmes interlink to ensure that critical needs of the communities served are comprehensively and effectively met.

Ikamva Labantu employs social workers, occupational therapists, community fieldworkers, professional nurses and others depending on the skills required – to achieve its goal. Ikamva Labantu works closely with its communities and builds partnerships with existing local organisations to maintain community ownership and direction.



Early Childhood Development Department
The two programmes, which focus specifically on, the educational development of young children, are:-

• Early Childhood Development – This comprises of formal and informal preschool facilities. Ikamva Labantu provides resources in the form of comprehensive early childhood development training, primary health care and psycho-social support, access and improvement to land and buildings, food security, centre administration, peer support as well as the accessing and maintaining government subsidy.
• Development Through Play – This programme equips principals and carers to prepare children to enter formal education.
• Family Services Department
• The need to care for children is the cornerstone of Ikamva Labantu’s mission. Our focus is to build the capacity of affiliated carers to enhance the care of orphans and vulnerable children.

Carers under the Family Support Services Initiative are:-

• Foster Parents (Magnificent Mothers/Fathers) adopt orphaned children from their community and provide them with stable and caring homes. The aim of our Family Support Service is to enable foster families to access social service grants, exemptions from school fees, establish peer support groups and achieve supportive self-sufficiency. As a result of foster children’s unique situations (many of whom lack the necessary birth certificate and registration documents), accessing their legal right to social services and childcare grants often becomes a long and complicated process. Until a grant is attained for each family, Ikamva Labantu sources funding to provide monthly stipends, school fees, supplies, uniforms and food to foster families based on the number of children they care for who do not receive grants. Magnificent Mothers/fathers are further equipped to address the mounting challenges such as HIV/Aids/TB and socio-economic conditions in their homes and communities. .
• Community Angels nurture unsupported children who live with parents or families who cannot provide them with adequate care. Community Angels identify children in their communities who live with parents who suffer from HIV/AIDS or other diseases, child-headed families, frail grandparents and/or others who are in socially and economically challenged situations. They provide food, basic care, schooling support, and assistance with grant applications, household supervision and basic home-based care. Ikamva Labantu strives to keep children within their own families as long as possible.
• Home-based carers travel throughout the communities, supporting vulnerable families by providing nursing and palliative care, home support and basic amenities including food and medical supplies. They also assist with grant applications and other necessary administrative tasks. Home-Based Carers also provide their services to Magnificent Mothers/fathers and Community Angels.
• Under the Family Support Services initiative, Magnificent Mothers/Fathers, Community Angels and Home-Based Carers work collaboratively in “high-risk” contexts. The initiative coordinates their services within a single Department, thereby ensuring a closer relationship among them, widening their network and improving their access to and delivery of services. Collectively, they provide communities with HIV/AIDS prevention, counselling, care and referrals to Voluntary Counselling and Testing, clinics and support groups.

Youth
The cornerstone of this programme is developing youth and giving them opportunities to learn and grow and become valuable contributing citizens of South Africa – they are the future of our nation. Ikamva Labantu therefore supports several community based youth programmes that build the capacities and provide youth with “skills for life”.

• Youth Forum – This network of community youth programmes collaborate to generate resources, provide training and run community projects.
• Hoops 4 Hope – Through basketball leagues, tournaments and after school programmes, community leaders teach life skills to youth who attend school and others who have dropped out of the school situation. Basketball is used as a vehicle for the development of young citizens focusing on character building and leadership and HIV / AIDS education.
• Lifeskills Programme – In partnership with Truworths (a national clothing chain store), this programme runs at three schools teaching learners enhancing lifeskills and responsible behaviour practices as well as computer education, career guidance and counselling and life coping skills

Economic Improvement Programmes
The need to develop our marginalized population so as to correct the imbalances of the past is vital. Job Creation, Economic empowerment, skills development and life skills are taught to ensure sustainable lives for our people.

• Community Creations – Operates within the Education and Capacity Building core service of Ikamva Labantu. It provides production and entrepreneurial skills to disadvantaged individuals. Many varied marketable items are produced and micro businesses are encouraged and supported.
• Department for the Visually Challenged – Facilitate access to mobility training, Braille, computer literacy and skills training to blind and partially sighted individuals to enable them to live independently and productively in society. Further, aromatherapists and foot masseuse are trained and operate in studios with great success.
• Food Security - Ikamva Labantu places emphasis on empowering community projects to become independent and self-sustaining through food garden training and mentoring. Ikamva Labantu works with communities to access land, water, fencing, storage and supplies. Food gardens have already been placed in many of our projects and they have produced a great deal of nutritious food for children in our child care centres, elderly people in our senior clubs, and orphans in our foster care homes. Large community gardens are used as training sites.

Seniors and Activity Centres

Senior clubs arose out of the need to assist elderly members within disadvantaged communities to meet their daily challenges. The organisation oversees senior clubs throughout the townships, which provide daily activities, such as meals, exercise, craft making, food gardening and special events. Support services include assistance with applying for pensions and child support and disability grants.

Over the last several years, the needs of these elder members of the community have changed. An increasing number of grandparents are left as caretakers of their grandchildren as their own children become ill or pass away, primarily as a result of HIV/AIDS related illnesses. The grandparents are left caring for several grandchildren, with only their small pension grant to care for the entire family. There is also little or no support network for this vulnerable section of the community to assist them to access child support grants. Many grandparents are infirm or too old and ill to be physically able to care for their children and the entire situation is heartbreaking.

Senior Centres are being transformed to Integrated Activity Centres where child care facilities, after-school programmes, Lifeskills, sports and guidance for youth are offered. This provides relief and assistance to the grandparents and better care for the children.


Black Economic Empowerment (BEE)

A Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) strategy has been established to provide Ikamva Labantu with a long- term financial sustainability. This has been done in line with the BEE codes set by the South African Government as a way of redressing the past social imbalances and skewed allocation of economic benefits.

As a BBBEE Ikamva Labantu offers the following:

• Economic and social development benefits that will reach a large number of disadvantaged South Africans;
• We assist businesses to meet their corporate social responsibility objectives;
• We advise businesses on how to meet employment equity targets;
• Partnership with NGOs and big businesses