The initial focus of the Kagiso Trust was to fund and support active political and community organisations resisting apartheid repression.

With the normalisation of the political landscape and the imperative to build democracy and drive development, the Trust changed from a purely funding organisation into one which actively supports projects and programmes aimed at building communities, alleviating poverty and broadening economic development. This transition is now complete, with the Trust playing a critical hands-on role in the initiatives it supports.

Some of the pivotal projects and programmes the Trust has either initiated or supported since its inception are:

Resistance: 1985 – 1993

• Civic & Advice Centres
• Kagiso Trust Bursary Programme
• Alexandra Disability Movement

Towards Sustainability: 1993 – 2000

• Soul City
• Soetfontein Rural Development Association
• The Mvula Trust
• Operation Blanket
• Johannesburg Housing Company
• Muden and Zibambeleni Integrated Community Programme
• Fadimeha HIV/AIDS Project
• Athlone School for the Blind
• Mitchell’s Plain Crisis Line
• The Incubator Project

Moving Forward: 2000 – 2010

• Umsobomvu Youth Fund
• Alexandra Renewal Project
• Kagiso Enterprises Rural Private Equity Fund (KERPEF )
• Kagiso Trust Consultancy
• The First Rand Deal
• Beyers Naudé Schools Development Fund
• Eric Molobi Scholarship Programme

Resistance: 1985 – 1993

Civic & Advice Centres

Kagiso Trust focused on funding and building capacity in civic and advice centres during the

1980s and early 1990s with the aim of promoting resistance to apartheid and strengthening participatory and democratic organisation at the grassroots. To further this objective the Trust set up a Civic and Advice Centre Programme, through which millions of rands were provided to advice centres throughout the country, to ensure that civic activists continued to operate and to improve the legal and social position of black people.

After the general elections of 1994 and the local elections of 1995-96 development, while still important, was now regarded as complementary to the functions of the state. However, Kagiso Trust continued its work with advice and civic organisations until the late 1990s with the intention of funding potentially viable community projects and assisting communities to become more self-reliant and independent.

Kagiso Trust Bursary Programme

Through its Bursary Programme, which has funded more than 25 000 students – about 40% of those who studied at the previously racially segregated universities, technikons, technical colleges and teacher training institutions, Kagiso Trust can claim to have had a sizeable impact on higher education in South Africa. Many who are now in the higher echelons of government, business and academia were helped by the Bursary Programme.

In its earlier years the Bursary Programme dispensed about R300-million a year. By 1997, as the reserve fund of donor money began to dwindle, the sum dropped to about R190-million. It has now been entirely taken over by the government.

Alexandra Disability Movement

The Alexandra Disability Movement (ADM) was started with funds from Kagiso Trust and is, today, the umbrella body for a number of income-generating projects for disabled people in the township, which is adjacent to Sandton, in Gauteng. TheTrust assisted the ADM with the development of a business plan, which, together with money from the Gauteng Department of Welfare, made it possible for the ADM to acquire a building in Alexandra.

In 1993 the Trust donated funds for a sewing project, which has since grown into the Disabled Art Printers Association (DAPA), a group of women who produce beadwork, cushions and cushion covers and printing material.

With the growth of the ADM an educational facility for disabled children was proposed. The Pillsbury Child Care Centre, which was started in 1997 had a staff of seven full-time teachers and more than 38 children by 2010. The Gauteng Department of Education is a partner in this initiative.

In 1991 the ADM added a basket-weaving component to enhance employment opportunities, with 35 disabled people weaving baskets.

Towards Sustainability: 1993 – 2000

Soul City

The Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication is a dynamic and innovative multi-media health promotion and social change project that, through drama and entertainment, successfully reaches more than 16-million South Africans and has now extended into the broader Southern African Development Community.

Kagiso Trust recognised the value and potential of the Soul City project while it was still in its conceptual phase, and made a substantial contribution to setting it up. This, in turn, encouraged other donors, including the European Union, to contribute funds to the project, independently.

The programme comprises a prime time television series, a daily radio drama, booklets, and an advertising and publicity campaign that aims to keep people talking and thinking about Soul City, as well as an advocacy campaign around major topics.

Soetfontein Rural Development Association

Soetfontein is a low-income rural village of about 25 000 people situated 120km north of

Polokwane in Limpopo province.

It has a high rate of unemployment; two-thirds of the community live on social grants or on remittances sent by relatives working in the cities. In 1992 a group of University of the North students from Soetfontein, concerned about the brain drain from the aea, set up an association which later became the Soetfontein Rural Development Association (SRDA), to enrich the life of the village.

The SRDA approached Kagiso Trust to fund the building of a community hall. The Trust, in turn, encouraged the students to adopt a more integrated and sustainable developmental approach. As a result, a beef-farming project and a housing project were established and later a community bakery, several pre-schools, a brick-making business, community market gardens and a telecentre were created. The latter doubles as a post office and internet centre. Nearby is the only library for 30km.

The community hall, built with bricks from the brick-making co-operative, houses a basketball court and a community radio station. Kagiso Trust also funded a clinic, built with bricks from the co-op.

HIV/AIDS education is a major priority, both of the radio station and of the Women and Youth Centre, also started by Kagiso Trust. The SRDA has established a Women’s Council to improve the lives of women and a Youth Council to provide opportunities for young people.

The Mvula Trust

The Mvula Trust, established in 1993 with funding from the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the Independent Development Trust and Kagiso Trust, is the largest water and sanitation non-governmental organisation in South Africa, with a proud history of success both locally and internationally.

The organisation boasts an impressive track record and expertise in working with poor communities in that it facilitates service delivery partnerships between these communities and their municipalities. Kagiso Trust’s R36-million contribution to the establishment of the Mvula Trust has helped to create an organisation that has made a real difference to the lives of thousands of rural South Africans and will continue to address positively the issues of clean water, safe sanitation and sustainable rural livelihoods.

Operation Blanket

From its humble beginnings in 1984 as a volunteer organisation set up to collect blankets for the needy and destitute in the areas around Mafikeng, Operation Blanket has grown into a body that makes a real difference to the lives of the people living in the area. Since 1994 Kagiso Trust has assisted with finance and technical advice, providing R2.1-million for the project over 6 years.

Guided by the Trust the organisation redefined its goals and today offers integrated development interventions to communities in the area. Members of the community are trained in skills such as sewing, knitting, baking, carpentry, welding, management, marketing and accounting. Funding is facilitated to enable the communities to obtain premises, equipment and materials to establish businesses.

The establishment of a mobile preventative healthcare project offering a valuable cervical smear programme for the early detection of cancer is considered one of Operation Blanket’s great successes. It also assists some 1 300 people from the community who are infected by HIVIAIDS.

Johannesburg Housing Company

In 1995 the Johannesburg Housing Company (JHC) was formed as a section 21 not-for-profit

company to address rapidly deteriorating living conditions in Johannesburg’s inner city. Founded on creative partnerships between the construction industry, financial institutions, community organisations and development funders such as Kagiso Trust and the European Union, JHC is regarded today as a model for the provision of social housing in inner cities.

The project seeks to achieve an optimal and commercially sustainable balance between housing delivery and training, thus creating opportunities for historically disadvantaged builders to engage and grow by participating in the delivery process.

Kagiso Trust’s R56-million contribution to the establishment of the JHC was key to the set-up and subsequent success of the organisation. The Trust remains a controlling partner, along with another section 21 company, New Housing Company. The Trust is proud of its involvement in the JHC, a project that has demonstrated sustainability and makes a difference to the lives of many by providing affordable accommodation.

Muden and Zibambeleni Integrated Community Programme

Muden is a small village in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal with poor physical and social infrastructure and a severe lack of sanitation, potable water, schools, clinics, and other amenities. The rate of unemployment in the area is very high, as there is no industry and very little commercial activity.

Zibambeleni, meaning “We do it ourselves”, a community-based organisation, operates a number of projects in Muden and the surrounding rural area. Its main purpose is to address poverty and unemployment through community empowerment that will lead to economic development.

Since 1997 Kagiso Trust has supported Zibambeleni with funds and with monitoring, support and evaluation services. The programme has offered the Trust an opportunity for involvement in a holistic and integrated community development programme to make a very real difference to the lives of rural people living in a marginalised area.

Already much has been achieved and the Trust continues to play a role.

Fadimeha HIV/AIDS Project

The HIV/AIDSs Project In Fadimeha, a township near Vereeniging, was started by Sister Eleanor Molefe in 1995 with a group of nurses concerned about the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the community. In 1997 they applied to Kagiso Trust for funding and thus began a process of consultation, guidance and advice from the Trust. The Trust assisted the community to elicit support for an HIVIAIDS education and food-gardening project and for the development of the district as a whole. The initiative was started in three communities, but only the project in Fadimeha has become sustainable.

Athlone School for the Blind

Athlone School for the Blind in Athlone, Cape Town, founded in 1927, is one of the oldest institutions in the country catering for black and coloured children with special needs. The 350 learners range from pre-primary to Grade 12. Forty-five of them are intellectually impaired and ten are wheelchair-bound.

In 1999 Kagiso Trust helped fund an income-producing market garden of some 2 000 square metres where learners could acquire new skills and which would generate funds and create a link with the surrounding community, who would be able to buy seedlings and produce from the school.

Unfortunately, although the garden still exists, the project did not work out as planned because blind children found it difficult to work in the garden. However, produce from the garden is used by the school’s hostel, a considerable cost-saving advantage.

Mitchell’s Plain Crisis Line

Mitchell’s Plain, home to two million people, has always had a high incidence of socio-economic problems – unemployment, crime and poverty are widespread.

The Mitchell’s Plain Crisis Line was established as a voluntary organisation in 1992 to support women who were subjected to domestic violence, a particular problem in the area. Between December 1993 and November 1994,7 064 women (the highest number in the country) approached the courts to ask for interdicts against abusive male partners. In 1999 Kagiso Trust took the organisation through a capacity-building process. The Trust helped the organisation workshop a constitution and register as a legal entity.

The Crisis Line is now incorporated in the Mitchell’s Plain Advice Centre (MPAC) and has expanded to include programmes tackling teenage development, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, xenophobia and racism. But domestic violence and empowerment of women remains a priority.

The Incubator Project

The Incubator Project was conceived and funded by Kagiso Trust in 1999 to support small businesses in Kimberley, a town in the Northern Cape which has high unemployment. The Trust played the role of catalyst, putting together a business plan, securing funds and bringing on board an architect to design a structure to house small businesses. Partners in the project included government, which made land available (worth about R5-million), private sector businesses, non-governmental organisations, and banks. The bulk of the money came from the Japanese government.

The Incubator Project had, as a broad initial objective, the provision of space for small businesses. Once they were successful the businesses would move to larger premises. There are 18 units with a working space of between 30m² and 60m² and a rental is charged for each unit.

Among the businesses that made use of the Incubator were a diamond cutting firm, an upholstery operation run by women, garment/sewing, papermaking, printing and decorating/design businesses. Only the printing business remains there today.

A lesson to be learnt from the fact that the facility is now not fully functional is that in a partnership between government, business, non-governmental organisations and others, the government has the responsibility to support small businesses.

Moving Forward: 2000 – 2010

Umsobomvu Youth Fund

The Umsobomvu Youth Fund, a programme targeted at unemployed youth, contracted Kagiso Trust Consultancy to facilitate programme formulation at district municipality and municipality levels, in consultation with local government, youth forums, other development agencies and relevant stakeholders.

The idea is to develop programmes that will encourage and increase the participation of youth in the local economy, thereby ensuring that they have access to opportunities in government aligned programmes, including the Municipal Infrastructural Grant, Extended Public Works, Integrated Development Plans, Urban Regeneration Programmes, etc.

The programmes are supposed to be mass-based and should promote youth participation in the mainstream of the economy, including, but not limited to, land use programmes and agricultural production, agri-processing, tourism, manufacturing, and construction and infrastructure development.

Kagiso Trust Consultancy has opened an office in Limpopo and currently employs two provincial programme coordinators and an administrator. The programme covers the Greater Sekhukhune, Capricorn and Waterberg district municipalities, including the local municipalities.

Alexandra Renewal Project

Alexandra has been identified by government as one of the nodal areas in the implementation of a national urban regeneration programme. The estimated budget for the Alex Renewal Project, over a seven-year period, is estimated at R1.3-billion.

Kagiso Trust was awarded the tender to coordinate the local economic development (LED) functional area. The Trust’s priority was to develop the LED strategy and to provide project management expertise, with a view to integrating Alexandra effectively into the broader economy of Gauteng, making the area safe, linking existing businesses in the township with the tourism industry and skills generating bodies, and promoting short- and long-term business and employment opportunities.

Among the components of the project are construction, auto & transport services, establishment of a local business service and an employment centre, as well as the development of tourism.

The First Rand Deal

First Rand Bank has made an historic partnership deal with Kagiso Trust which will provide funding to ensure that the Trust is able to continue its work for many decades to come. Laurie Dippenaar, then CEO of First Rand Bank, explained why the bank chose Kagiso Trust as a partner: “The reason we did the deal with Kagiso was part of the ongoing transformation in South Africa and to ensure that the disadvantaged community had a fair share of the ownership of economic assets in South Africa.

“If you look ahead 10 to 15 years: once the dividend stream has paid off the debt, that dividend stream will be available for the greater good. I personally think it is a much better investment to educate tens of thousands of students, to be able to give them a tertiary education, than it is to create a few wealthy individuals.

“It’s a bit of a marriage and choosing a marriage partner is always a bit tricky. But we know we’ve got it right. We had no shortage of people knocking at our door. But what was important was finding people with a good track record, excellent reputation. And Kagiso Trust was also a very desirable partner. Kagiso, being what it is, is a natural port of call for companies looking for a partner.”

Beyers Naudé Schools Development Fund (BNSDP)

Kagiso Trust has revised its focus from disbursing grants to concentrating on designing, implementing and monitoring integrated development programmes in partnership with other development agencies and the private sector, particularly in rural education, which remains one of South Africa’s greatest challenges.

The BNSDP, which has been operating for five years, aims to restore the culture of learning and teaching in rural secondary schools. Among other things, it supports the improvement of school infrastructure in the areas of maths, science and ICT.

At present it is active in Limpopo, Mpumulanga, Free State and the Eastern Cape and, in 2009, it signed a service level agreement with the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government to roll out the programme in ten schools in the Mzinyati area.

The BNSDP model concentrates on establishing good governance and management principles, which ultimately contribute to the long-term success of a school. It deals with crucial issues, including management and discipline challenges, teacher motivation, curriculum development, community involvement and lack of infrastructure. Infrastructure, which is only provided once the school demonstrates a marked improvement in results, typically consists of a science laboratory, library, computer centre and / or an administration block. Support for extra-mural activities is also offered to schools that have improved their final Grade 12 results.

By 2009 more than 40 schools were participating in the programme, with R23m disbursed in the financial year. Approximately 21 000 learners currently benefit and more than 1 400 educators are employed in BNSDP schools.

Eric Molobi Scholarship Programme (EMSP)

The EMSP, launched by Kagiso Trust, Kagiso Trust Investments (KTI), and other private sector partners as a tribute to Eric Molobi, funds deserving learners who show an aptitude for maths and science and wish to study further in fields such as engineering.

The EMSP targets rural learners who attend schools participating in the Beyers Naudé School Development Programme. The EMSP combines theory and practice by integrating classroom learning and work experience within the KTI group of companies for the duration of their studies. The first intake, in 2007, consisted of 10 students and, by 2009, there were 28 in the programme. Students are encouraged to study in various fields of engineering but, with the participation in the programme of other sponsors, this network has expanded to include students studying commerce. Students participating in the programme are monitored and supported at their respective universities.

Kagiso Enterprises Rural Private Equity Fund (KERPEF)

KERPEF was established in 2002 as a subsidiary of Kagiso Trust, with the aim of assisting sustainable rural businesses.

KERPEF’s investment criteria reflect Kagiso Trust’s values. The fund, which focuses on rural communities, which are excluded from the mainstream economy, aspires to alleviate rural poverty with business principles of self-reliance. KERPEF, therefore, cultivates rural economic participation and ownership by commercialising sustainable rural business models.

KERPEF funds small businesses that have a sustainable impact on rural lives. These enterprises must lead to job creation and skills transfer to previously disadvantaged individuals. The funding provided is not a grant but a combination of equity finance and a loan payable at a preferential interest rate.

In certain instances the fund may lend without collaterals. The fund indirectly unlocks resources (financial and non-financial) for rural entrepreneurs. It invests in start-up businesses, expansion, buy in and buy out.