A Message from the Chief Executive Officer

Kgotso Schoeman, Chief Executive Officer, Kagiso Trust

CEO STATEMENT

The contribution made by the Kagiso Trust (KT) in South Africa is undeniable.  The journey travelled by KT has been long and worthwhile.  The journey has not been an easy passage, but through determination and dedication from the people who have worked for the organisation over the years, we can only look back and reflect on our achievements with humbleness and pride.

The success of the organisation stems closely from KT’s firm focus on development. From inception, KT adopted and has always been committed to its non-sectarian approach, lending support to a wide range of progressive organisations working for change in apartheid South Africa.  In some instances, KT was responsible for setting up new organisations.  KT was not just a funder, but a catalyst for new development institutions and initiatives.  KT was previously committed to both the political and development struggle in the country; however with many of the political struggle issues achieved, the development struggle for the Trust continues.

During the mid 80s and late 90s, KT’s donor partners contributed immensely in developing an organisation that is people centred; responsive to the needs of South Africans and the country at large; as well as assisting the organisation in an ethos and development methodologies that are sensitive to rural communities and processes.

With the dawn of democracy international and national donors decided to channel their funds directly to government; KT accepted and confronted the hard reality that it could no longer continue in the same manner for the short and medium term (i.e. being all things to all people).  It became imperative to develop a management culture that would not be swayed against taking tough and sometimes daunting decisions.  The situation also allowed the leadership of the Trust from Patrons, Trustees, and management to tap into their most creative energies so as to develop a sustainability model for the Trust beyond dependence on donor funding. This challenged KT immensely as during this period, KT was faced with three main options.  That is; option 1 was to close business as KT had played its role in contributing towards the attainment of a non racial and democratic South Africa.  Option 2 was merging with other development organisations and transfer its’ infrastructure and intellectual property.  Option 3 was reengineering and developing a plan to sustain the activities and the role of the KT beyond donor funding. KT chose the latter, which resulted on the closure of offices in most provinces and the retrenchment of staff as a strategic effort to reposition the organisation as a development agency.

The benefits of the tough decisions taken fifteen years ago are in evidence today, as KT is now a refocused and a niche organisation that funds its own programmes with dividends from its investment company (Kagiso Trust Investments) in partnership with the private sector and government.  KT has developed a methodology of designing development programmes which embrace partnerships between government as well as the private sector in fighting poverty through education and rural enterprise development.

KT has adopted a bottom – up development approach that is informed by issues on the ground, through consultations with communities and relevant stakeholders. The development approach of the Trust is anchored around the following principles:

-          Sector driven and focused;

-          Programmatic in nature – multi year commitment;

-          Local and regional focus;

-          Demonstrating staying power around innovative programme design and implementation.

These principles have assisted the Trust to facilitate the design of well informed decisions for developing programmatic implementation strategies and methodologies.  KT today, has repositioned itself and is able, using its own resources, to test new approaches and methodologies around programme design and implementation with an intention of scaling up any successful pilot programmes / projects.

An example of this can be seen in KT’s flagship programme, the Beyers Naude Schools Development Programme (BNSDP) which was initially piloted in one school in Limpopo Province.  The programme is an innovation on how we can tackle the challenges in education in an integrated manner and sustain improvements in the system particularly in schools. Today, the demand for the BNSDP continues to grow from a programme which was piloted from a humble beginning in Limpopo, to a programme being implemented in five provinces (Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, Free State, and Kwa-Zulu Natal).

Our ambitious aim is that by the end of 2015 the Trust should have a presence and footprint in all nine provinces and promote the concept of creating Rural and Urban Educational Nodal Areas.  The objective of the Education Rural / Urban Nodal Areas concept is to convert dysfunction schools to be part of excellent educational nodal areas. For example in the Free State in consultation and in partnership with the provincial department of education, the aim is the convert the Maluti a Phofung area, which is part of the Thabo Mofutsanya District into an educational rural nodal area.  This implies that the BNSDP will work with over 150 schools from the foundation phase to the Further Education Training (FET) phase in this specific area. If successful the investment in the Maluti a Phofung area will be for a period of 4 to 5 years.

It is our firm belief that meaningful and sustainable change can only come about through integrated strategies that empower communities to improve their own livelihood. We will continue to seek out new models, while investing in current models that deliver maximum benefits.