NPO on recycling initiative drive

Land of The Living aims to support unemployed youth in Buffalo City

In an effort to become a selfsustainable non-profit organisation, Land of The Living have started a registered recycling business in Buffalo City which aims to provide an income for unemployed youth and have a positive impact on the environment.

“Land of The Living has been around for the last eight years, as a ministry-based organisation helping existing NPOs in the community and bringing different NPOs and community leaders together, but we only formally registered as an NPO at the beginning of this year,” said director Scott Worley, who is originally from the USA but has been in the province for 14 years and has 20 years of experience in community work.

He said Joshua Achaempong, the organisation’s training programme head, was training unemployed youths in basic business skills in Mdantsane, Mzamomhle, Scenery Park and the Cambridge Location.

“Joshua is very passionate about training the youth to create their own work and has extensive experience working with recycling projects. We’ve been running communitybased entrepreneurial mentorship programmes, but realised we needed to find a sustainable way to fund them, without relying on donors. Thus, the Unantoni Endlini? recycling project was borne,” said Worley.

The Zulu phrase, meaning What do you have in the house?, informs Land of The Living’s vision of identifying what people have and supporting what is already available in an effort to empower youth to make their own livelihood.

“I’ve always wanted to become involved with environmental projects, especially seeing the amount of neglect environmental issues receive in communities. The trash is already there and essentially we’re turning it into treasure,” said Worley.

The project calls for unemployed youth to collect recyclable waste, mainly plastic. The organisation then buys the collected items from the youth and trains them how to sort through, bail and compact the different materials at their central depot in Arcadia, while giving basic business skills training on the job.

● If anyone is interested in donating recyclable items to the project or visiting the depot, please contact Worley at scott@godadventure.org.