Collective Empowerment Projects {CEP}

Unemployment is an apparent dreadful contributory factor to hunger, poverty and various social ills in South Africa or elsewhere. There is a need to establish simple sustainable projects (poultry, fish, & plantation farming)  emboldening participation of poor jobless people in the process of agricultural food production, executing indigenous skills profitably and development of collaborative financial network to safeguard the sustenance of our business initiatives.  Every community and country has unique skills (how to produce food and trading its own production) embedded in cultural experiences; those skills if economically coordinated and formalised could be beneficial on the global scale regardless of variances indigenous food and mode of production. The fundamental objectives of our solution is entrenched in the mobilisation of existing skills entrenched in the culture of marginalised poor people, channelling them in ways that increase production, profit, labour force and improving their probability for market competitiveness.  

Unemployment is the problem we intend to address in order to alleviate poverty, address social ills such as violent service delivery protests, xenophobic violent attacks, susceptibility of youth to join terrorist groups, crime, and prostitution. Unemployment in South Africa is at 29% before COVID-19 pandemic; our initiatives target 250 poor people who are already using our model in remote rural communities in Limpopo province in South Africa. The 250 people are in various rural communities within 150KM distance from one another. We envisage reaching the continent of Africa with our model of business and global community at large to benefit from our projects. Unemployment in South Africa is mainly proliferated by inequality, corruption and increasing population. The citizens have a sense of entitlement, always expecting a failing government to provide for their needs, Collective Empowerment Projects (CEP) seek to instil entrepreneurial perception that inform self-reliant mind-set among poor and marginalised people. Poor education system even at university level fail to equip young people with proper skills that help them navigate the real world with concrete initiatives. Majority of unemployed people endure abuse and violation of human rights. Unemployment confiscate the dignity of people.

We use indigenous skills to establish formal businesses that generate profit and increase food production in poor communities. We improve the existing skills by incorporating modern technology. For instance, in poultry farming we used to buy chicks, raise them and sell. We intend to do whole poultry farm, by breeding and raising birds, provided we have proper equipment. This will maximise market capacity and profitability. We already have professional farmers who pledged their willingness to mentor and offer free training to our emerging small farmers. Our solution breaks a chain of poverty in poor families, by creating employment. Those involved in the primary farming activity benefits, some in the community decide to buy the farm products in order to sell in the market places, and therefore we have two groups of beneficiaries. In poultry farming we use digital egg incubator, modern feed storage-silos and laying nests. Our fish farming will be improved by adopting Greenest Fish Farming Method called Land-Based Aquaculture. Plantation farming is encouraged and due to effect of climate, change has depreciated, but we acquire new skills from professional farmers, some of them have been generous to help with their equipment like tractors, seeds and fertilizers. 

We serve poor unemployed people in rural areas, these are made up of older people and youth. Older people transfer the indigenous skills to youth, and the youth also learn modern technological methods from professional farmers. The target population is mainly black people, since in South Africa white people do not commonly live in rural areas, only when they have a well-established business such as farms. However, our initiatives does not discriminate on the bases of race or gender. We serve poor unemployed demonstrating willingness and commitment to undergo the process precedes all variables of eligibility. My expertise as a Social Worker enabled me to empathise with marginalised groups in remote rural communities,as I grew up in rural. I Honours research and Master’s research focused on violence, and uncovered that social ills, inter alia, xenophobia are linked to unemployment. I established trust with these communities, I have access to traditional chiefs, who are custodians of land and other mineral resources in these communities. The solution give poor people a sense of purpose, because they can now do something on their own to change their unpleasant circumstances. Job creation by the community for the community is fundamental goal of the solution.

Unemployment is a global phenomenon, however, in poor rural communities is extensive due to absence of industrial opportunities, therefore, the solution makes it possible for new small businesses to develop. The solution is suitably located in remote rural communities usually overlooked by the state and industries when it comes to developmental programmes. Poor people, men, women, and youth require financial support in order to prosper in their endeavour to form internal and external business networks.  Developing meaningful networks with other established businesses would bring prosperity and boost our access to modern technologies necessary to expand production and job creation.

Individuals mainly own farming in South Africa or Africa as their personal owned business benefiting an individual family. On the contrary, our approach is macro-based, whereby considerable ordinary people in communities participate not as employees but rather as co-owners of the projects. The distinctive aspect of our solution currently does not lie with use of automation or modern technologies used mainly by existing ‘white’ farmers in the South African context. Our innovative strategy is embedded in transformational flexibility and formalisation of informal indigenous farming or businesses.  Our commitment is to mainstream development of our communities, through constant lobbying the collaboration of existing prosperous farmers. The most resourceful tool in our solution is the involvement of community members, as these appeals to the consciences of the existing professional farmers to share their skills with us. Our solution, seek to alleviate poverty within our communities. The current established farms export their products irrespective of hunger in the communities they operate. Our model address poverty, by ensuring food availability and maximise profit by selling to economically challenged communities. In South Africa there is no solution like ours, some of the existing projects that claim macro-based approach, have been affiliated to political parties, particularly ruling party, thus, their initiatives were driven by self-serving individuals who in most cases use the state funding and resources to serve their own rather than the intended purposes. We create meaning and purpose in our effort to achieve self-reliant communities, we are innovative in the midst of our lack. 

Our projects due to financial constraint has not yet embraced fourth industrial revolution, some of the professional business gurus we have invited for mentorship and support have indicated the importance of technology in our solutions. We have not employed any technological applications yet, because we do not have any automation resources yet. We acknowledge that if we made use of technology for production and marketing, our solution would have reached many communities and uplifted many lives economically. The application of technology will Increase availability of local food, people’s income and sustainability of agricultural practices. In our visits to our mentors’ farms we learnt some of the technological appliances we would like to use in order to achieve growth and success. Some of the automations include:  Dairy Hubs, Fertilizer Deep Placement, Mobile Apps and for our poultry division we would employ: General Probiotics Antimicrobial Probiotics, Little Bird Feed Cast System, Simple Vet Regulatory Compliance Data Management and Poultry System Simulation Model, these are some of technological applications we intend to make use, when we receive them or purchase them. In our answer to this section, we do not want to give deceptive answers that will give an impression that we are already using some form of technology. We are rural based people, we emerge from poor background, and however, we are educated and open-minded individuals. Change is eminent in our lifetime, whereby poor African communities take front line in the food production, job creation and poverty alleviation. 

As we have alluded earlier on that, we have not had a privilege of using technology in our projects. However, we have some resources that influenced our initiatives and business model. It is imperative to highlight that our business model is influenced and guided by existing research resources.  As I am going through the application, I somehow feel that our solution does not resonate with SOLVE’s expectations of what should be the best solution. I think our contextual background is not captured in the outlines of the narratives unfolding from this application.  The reason why I continue applying is the confidence in the solution I am presenting. I have witnessed the positive impact our project had on the lives of young people who had been drug addicts, criminals and hopeless, transformed by our initiatives. Our solution bring purpose to participants, and it brings food to their table. Our generous friendly professional farmers inspire us through their mentorship and support.  The following are some of the research papers that influenced our solutions: Reinten, E. and J.H. Coetzee. 2002. Commercialization of South African indigenous crops: Aspects of research and cultivation of products. p. 76–80. In: J. Janick and A. Whipkey (eds.) retrieved from https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-076.html  and IFAD (2015) Strategic interventions for Family Poultry What can be achieved through Research & Development activities. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/aq627e/aq627e.pdf

Our projects are informed by problem solving as a theory of change in the solution. As a social worker I am committed to people empowerment, which entails taking people through a journey of self-discovery. Whereby individuals learn about their own potential and talent. Problem solving to our solution has been fundamental from the initial stage, when problem was identified. When I moved from my village community to the city to study at the University. I met a friend whose parents owned a farm, during holidays I went with him to his home, because I didn’t have money for the bus. That’s when I learnt more about farming and I realised that I wouldn’t have experienced the level of hunger I endured in my village. The realisation that people in my community do lot of work without actually making any living. I knew that there was a problem and no one will come and solve it for us, hunger is painful, and most young people resort to crime, drugs and prostitution, while older people work hard in ways that does not compensate them. Therefore, the village was engaged in the process of conscientisation, I educated them about the importance of self-reliant initiatives that can generate income. Problem solving empowered the villagers to realise that they can utilise the little resources in the community to make some returns. The only way we can get external support is if we can first begin do something with our problem. Any external aid should meet us along the way of development. We are able to pay registration fee for participants’ children at the college, because in they need that funds before getting government bursary in the middle of the year. Villagers are encouraged when they realise that their efforts bring about positive results. 

Our solution currently serve 150 people in our community, it has to be mentioned that this number decreases in winter due to lack of rain and cold weather, most workers, especially elderly people cannot manage to carry water from the stream to irrigate the plants. Cold affects our poultry division whether too, as we do not have automation to heat the birds, they die or not grow faster and the chicken food are costly. In one year through the Elevate prize we will reach to large rural communities and about 500 people will be reached and benefit from the solution. In the period of five years our work would be benefiting 2500 plus people. These people would be having jobs in production and sale. It is actually envisaged that our solution would be benefiting more than 5000 people when we include those from other African countries. Our solution appropriately situated and contextually accurate for developing or undeveloped communities. The solution take people through a process of self-realisation the process of production, whereby people have an intimate relationship with their production. This is not so in the regular market, where products are enstranged or alienated quickly from the producers. Exploitation of the vulnerable people is not the case, because people are partners in the production. Our model bring a sense of satisfaction to partners and they feel a sense of ownership too. Hence, partners ensures the security of the resources.

 The model of business presented by our solution is highly appreciative of indigenous food production and business. In a period of a year, 2500 people will be involved in the business. The plan is to ensure that from the 2500 people 100 or more will be selected as ambassadors of the solution to other villages and neighbouring countries to champion the establishment of projects. Our solution cannot be imposed to any village or country, or implemented without the recipients villages involvement. This is because our model is embedded in the culture and the existing skills within the communities. We take into account the indigenous food, we will introduce technology to advance mode of production on what is usually consumed in particular villages of countries.  The crops differed from country to country, though others share similar crops. In the period of 5 years the continent of Africa should be involved in our solution. Our solution is about formalising the informal businesses and expanding the existing business for job creation and income increase. Our first year target is crucial for marketing our solution and building our network. The solution will change more than 5000 lives in the next 5 years. In the African context 5000 individuals are directly linked to almost a million people, due to larger extended family units of our continents. 

Increasing unemployment create a challenge in sense that partners would consume most of the production themselves, before they can make any profit. When partners have no food at home, our solution make the available production available, because poverty alleviation is fundamental to our solution. However, the sustenance of the business is challenged, especially when ran on skeleton budget. The use of technology is a challenge in the communities we work, majority of partners do not have access to internet, which make communication difficult. Only few of our partners uses social media platforms to market our products. The challenge is majority of our partners are illiterate, never had an opportunity to attend school (partners refers to participants, or people working in the business). Marketing our products online would be beneficial. In                South Africa is easier to operationalise our solution, because the land in rural area is in the hands of traditional chiefs. Traditional chiefs are partners by virtue of their position, but they do not occupy superior position in the business. The role of traditional chief is for legal administration of the operation. The mind-set of majority of people in rural villages is accustomed to subsistence rather than commercial agriculture. We have a task of taking them through a transformative process, so that they can see business opportunity in their work, not easy but doable. Due to lack of automotive resources, we experience seasonal shortages and market requires reliable suppliers. 

Lack of food at partners’ homes will be addressed through technology application in our business, as this will guarantee expansion and faster production. Large production would be realisable throughout the year and sufficient production will generate profit for partners to improve their lives and restore their dignity. We will organise workshops to train our partners on how to use social media as a marketing platform. We will approach NGOs that offers free trainings on digital connections, computer skills and internet usage to rural based individuals. Once we get financial stability we will built a website, have a marketing team who will populate our work on social media platforms. In addressing the question of illiteracy, we plan to encourage our members attend adult evening school, and many of our partners indicated interest in learning, but had no opportunity as they have to do odd jobs and farming to make means. This will be resolved once our solution is well established economically, because partners will not have to do odds jobs like firewood collection and recycle collection. When our solution start generating reasonable profits, our partners will have a chance to attend evening school, thus illiteracy resolved.

We have been receiving training through workshops offered by South African government under Department of Rural development & Land Reform and Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. These department share the vision of Collective Empowerment Projects, which is the solution we execute in effort to create jobs and increase food security. These government department together with established farmers associations help us with skills and knowledge development in the area of agriculture. However, the government does not have a commitment to rural development, there is a centralisation of resources in urban areas of South Africa, thus, the periphery is generally neglected

During rainy season (summer) we have about 150 people working in our projects, and the number can go higher than 180 by part-time additional staff. On winter season, there is no rain in South Africa, most of the time we have 50 workers or less (15). This is because we engage in hard labour during dry season and there is a decreased production. Workers do not like carrying water from the stream in a cold weather. We have requested volunteers many times, but the responses have been negative. We hope to grow our capacity as we have enough natural resources.

The most skilful and resourceful team members are older people aged between 50 and 65  years old men and women. It must be mentioned that most of these elderly people are women. Their experiences in the indigenous food, and farming methods contribute fundamentally to our solution. The other important lesson to learn from the elderly group is cultural values and customs that guides our practice, for instance, we embrace “Ubuntu” (translated humanity) as an African idiom significant to our identity in social and economic life. Myself as an  executive director  I am a social worker by profession, and I just completed my Master’s degree, and in the process of registering for PhD studies. Most of the young people involved in our project have high school certificate, could not further their studies dues to family’s financial constraints. Most of them have acquired skills from vocational training centres and workshops organised by government in most incidences. These young people are suitable for the solution as their age would enable them to work for many years to come. These young people can still attend trainings elsewhere in the world, in order to capacitate and develop our solution. The advantage of having young people, who do not have skills or qualifications another fields, guarantees commitment and reliability.  Graduates usually leave us when they get professional jobs. We are not in any way suggesting that  educated youth would not be useful to our solution, but they are not suitable for the survival of our solution

The world, mainly Africa is facing abject poverty and COVID-19 exposed the negative effects of poverty and inequality in the African societies. African youth look up to government to provide their needed necessities . Our solution is about job creation through agriculture, business establishments and expansion of existing businesses. The Department of Rural development & Land Reform and Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries are fundamental partners as they support our initiatives through non-financial resources. Farmers’ association offers mentorship to our solution, although their support is limited due to financial constraint on our side, for instance, we cannot effort pay them for training, and accommodation when they visit our site. This is because major farms are in urban areas, while we are rural based. It is also important that our partners travel to the major farms to receive practical trainings there, but transportation  and accommodation is expensive for our organisation.  Once we become visible and well-resourced we are going to have solid partnership with Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), to support our initiatives to ensure growth of our business. South African Farmers Development Association (SAFDA) is one of the effective partner, and a well-established association supporting farmers in rural areas. We tried to work with National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), but we learnt that their vision contradicts our own, for instance, NYDA endorse Black Economic Empowerment, a policy that ushered corruption and elitism. Our approach does not seek to empower an individual at the expense of the poor majority.  

We promote and value health diet, hence organic food is important to our organisation. We intend to address issues of malnutrition and hunger, especially in the remote rural areas of the African countries. The dignity of our partners, employees and customers is very important to our business. Social justice is fundamentally important to our business, although we envisage profit maximisation in order to better the lives of our employees/partners, but the general wellbeing and dignity of beneficiaries is of paramount importance to us. Our model also seek to address environmental pollution, as in most cases we use waste as fertilisers, in doing so we clean the environment and it is proven to be cost effective. The freshness and affordability of our products is commendable in the rural communities we serve. Our customers and beneficiaries appreciate the chicken meat and vegetables we sell, particularly because they are fresh from the ground. When our business grow, we hope to supply our products also in the urban markets in order to maximise profit for our beneficiaries. The urban area consume processed food in most instances, this is because the urban area is occupied by industrials, which are main causes of air pollution. People in the urban area need our organic foods for health reasons. We intend to use online marketing platforms, we haven’t done so because of lack of resources. We want to embrace the essence of 4IR, particularly e-commerce.

Our project will mainly be self-sustenance through the selling of our products. All of our products are sold at the market price and also within the community through door to door sales. Our products are the most preferable in our village, because they are the only organic food accessible to people living in the remote rural areas. After our first funding, we will be able to grow our business, increase labour force, and number of beneficiaries will grow proportionately as our production increases. Once we have sufficient funding to expand our production, we will have enough to sell, and enough land to plant, enough water to irrigate and use for other supplies. The government is likely to support our initiative when we are well established and able to increase number of employees. The government’s donation from the Department of Agriculture will go a long way in ensuring the sustainability of our solution. With sufficient funding we will adopt technological techniques to increase our production, and to advertise or market our product beyond our geographic location. We also envisage our solution to have its own vehicle, so that will reduce cost of car rentals and delivery payments. Hence these will help our solution for its long term sustenance.  

We want to improve food security in the remote rural areas of Africa. We use indigenous farming to create employment and make food supply available to poor families. We apply for Solve because our solution does not feed the poor, but it gives them a sense of self-determination, dignity and responsibility as they don’t have to rely on hand-outs and resort to begging anymore. Our solution has a track-record of success in the community. We focus on fish and poultry farming and mainly vegetation. We also want to start livestock farming, for milk, meat and sales. Our solution incorporates the indigenous skills embedded in people’s historical culture with modern technological utilisation, in order to advance our way of farming. We have not used technology in our farming methods, but we have learned a lot from our modern farmer mentors. We are that the use of technology in our business will improve production and sustainability. 

We want to partner with established modern farmers to help grow our business and the way we run our farms. Partnering with our mentors is fundamental to our business growth and save us unnecessary costs. We also intend to partner with African countries’ indigenous farmers, to ensure that our solution spread across poor communities in the African continent to address malnutrition and unemployment. In South Africa we will have a partnership with farmers’ association, which helps in terms of skill transfer, they introduce internships for small farmers. We know this partnership will be necessary for our solution and its growth.

We want to partner with Land Reform, so that they can help us with fertilisers, and farmers’ grants. Once we register our solution as an official business, we will qualify a membership with Land Reform in South Africa.  We also want to partner with Peritum Agri Institute - Transforming Agricultur, which helps emerging farmers to improve their farming methods and transform their mode of operation through technology 

Our solution cater for women and girls in rural areas, women in these communities are subjected to gender abuse and exploitation. In most cases they are left alone with children by their intimate partners,who travel into urban areas fro job opportunities. Unfortunately only a handful of men come back to support the women and children at home. In most instances the women have tyo engage in prostitution or extra labour in order to put food on the table. Gender based violence also drive women out of their homes and our solution seek to assist them find a means of livelihood and self sustenance even after being abandoned by their loved ones. Patriarchal practices in rural areas is rife, and women are subjected to gender inequality and and economic exploitation. Hence our solution place more attention on the general wellbeing of women, to assist the stand on  their feet and pursue their aspirations in a safer environment