Siyakholwa Development Foundation (Siyakholwa), is a strategic implementing partner for the Social Employment Fund (SEF), an initiative of the Presidential Employment Stimulus.
Through the SEF, Siyakholwa is able to create work opportunities in Early Childhood Development, greening projects and the environment, healthcare, as well as food security and nutrition, with upliftment projects stretching to communities on the West Rand in Johannesburg, as well as a number of projects across the Eastern Cape too.
“Our focus is to help communities and people become independent, to realise the skills they possess, as well as the potential of available resources to change their situations”, said Siyakholwa CEO, Dr Rejoice Shumba.
Activities around food security include establishing food gardens and training the unemployed to establish and maintain these food gardens so that they become sustainable food sources. Currently food security activities on the West Rand employ people across 7 community gardens.
Early childhood development, also a key priority of Siyakholwa’s community upliftment initiatives, involves the training and placement of ECD assistants at early learning centres and playgroups to provide a source of support to ECD practitioners.
Through a partnership with SmartStart, Siyakholwa has been able to employ ECD assistants, and skills learned through training will empower these teacher assistants to operate their own ECDs and playgroups over time. ECDs also benefit from produce from food gardens, while excess is shared with the broader community.
According to Dr Shumba, food gardens feed young children in the ECDs to alleviate challenges of stunted growth and malnutrition. At facilities where there are no cooking amenities, fresh vegetables are shared with parents to prepare at home for their young children”.
The Social Employment Fund also makes it possible to allocate resources to the establishment of community aftercare programmes where young children are helped with their homework after school while their parents are working.
Concludes Dr Shumba, “Aftercare facilities help to support mainly learners who are challenged by numeracy and language skills. This facility provides such valuable support to working parents who need the peace of mind that their children are doing their homework”.
The team at Siyakholwa is constantly innovating to ensure longevity of the programmes which the organisation has implemented.
