Land ownership makes Naledi villagers self-reliant
ABOUT 23km from Ficksburg in the Free State are about 100 residents of a village called Naledi.
In 2014, non-profit social activist initiative Earthrise Trust bought a farm and transferred ownership of some of the land to these villagers.
Of the 273 hectares which Earthrise owns, 130ha is arable and 143ha is suitable for grazing. After a series of meetings with residents, Earthrise transferred 42ha to a community trust to build homes and establish social infrastructure such as sport fields.
A further 28ha were set aside for the Naledi farming co-operative and 110ha for the cattle owners’ association created by Naledi residents.
The residents have since created a self-sustaining village with community-based enterprises. Some of the profit from these businesses is used to build and invest in infrastructure and for development programmes.
Naledi, which means star, falls under the municipality of Setsoto. Farm workers and tenants who sought accommodation closer to work within the scenic mountains and valleys established the village in the late 1970s.
Although Earthrise transferred ownership of the land in 2014, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform has yet to formalise the transfer. The village still needs basic services such as sanitation and electricity as well as proper housing.
“The people used to look for jobs. Now they work for themselves,” says Anton Chaka, 55, a village leader who chairs itsd farming co-operative, which employs at least 20 people.
Chaka started working as a gardener in 1981 and became the assistant manager of Rustlers Valley Farm, which used to stage an annual music festival.
The farm was owned by a company called Rustlers Valley with Frik Grobbelaar the majority shareholder from the 1980s until 2008, when he died of a heart attack. The year before, a fire had engulfed the farm and killed all the livestock.
Since the farm was no longer used for commercial purposes, the smaller shareholders of the company decided to sell it in August 2013.
Earthrise Trust says it was the preferred buyer because of its vision for an integrated participatory partnership approach to building sustainable rural communities.
The sale was registered in December 2013.
Most of the roofs in the village are kept in place by stones, reflecting the previously transient nature of life there. But now that they own the land, some of the residents hope to build permanent brick homes.
Earthrise executive director Gino Govender says the government created a dependent citizenry by forgetting “people are an agency of liberation capable of leading their own transformation.
Naledi shows what’s possible when you have a democratic governance.”
The co-operative grows tomatoes, cabbages, sugar beans and pumpkins.
Since it started in 2015, it has received funding from a number of organisations.
Old Mutual gave the co-op R1.5 million in 2015. Chaka says most of this was spent on input costs, irrigation and monthly stipends for each co-op member. The money lasted 18 months. A year later, hailstorms threatened the crops.
“We needed to get a shade net and our cabbages had pests,” says Chaka.
They approached the Tsebo Foundation, which “specialises in initiatives that enable people to support themselves, build community roots and create economic stability”, and in 2016 the foundation agreed to donate R1.3m to build tunnels in which vegetables could be grown year-round.
Last year, the Industrial Development Corporation gave them R4.9m. According to Chaka, the government eventually donated R2.13m.
Jappie Lephatsi, 56, chairs the adjacent Franshoek village and is as a manager at the Earthrise Mountain Lodge. He is committed to ensuring Naledi’s youngsters have a better future.
“In 2016, we spent three months building a crèche for the little children and I was in charge of that,” he says.
The Nelson Mandela Centre of Learning cost R320000 to build and was set up to improve the children’s literacy so that they would cope with the transition to primary school.
Molefe Ralebenya, 22, learned about beekeeping in Grade 10. Now he runs an enterprise with 27 hives, each of which holds at least 10kg of honey.
Naledi will no doubt produce more citizens of calibre because the village elders are laying a solid foundation for the younger residents. |