Experience has shown us how young children begin to develop their potential when they have access to a caring and nurturing environment, despite the challenges they may experience.
This observation has given us the courage to build the dream of a family centre in Vukuzenzele – a place of safety where the entire ecosystem of support around young children will be anchored. The family centre is imagined as a welcoming place where children and their families can laugh, play, sing, work, learn, grow together and be loved, nourished and supported. It is a place where children are the seeds at the centre of an ecosystem, and their growth and thriving is nurtured by a strong community. We have secured a site and are working with the community and an architect to develop the site plans, while raising funds for the construction.
Before the first brick is laid, the community will have been involved in every aspect of planning and bringing the vision of the family centre into reality. The project design incorporates skills development into every phase of the building construction, so that artisan designers and buildings will have opportunities for upskilling through the project.
The core team of ALET plays a vital role in making this possible, as the facilitation and mediation of this process is critical. Up until this point the largest portion of time and energy has been spent trying to resolve a conflict in the community that started in 1999. Each time this conflict has erupted has brought new opportunities for change and transformation. Through consistent and transparent engagement and conflict resolution with the community at every stage, a new willingness is emerging to work together towards building a new future.
The story of how we got involved in Vukuzenzele is a very interesting one. Whilst working as a principle of a small school in Philippi, I met many women that wanted to have small creches and ECD centres that were like ours. Yet they had little access to funding or people that would fund small projects like that. That is when we founded ALET. We were then introduced to Vukuzenzele, and Imizamo Yethu as a project that a very generous husband and wife (provide link here) that were supporting the small educare. The most urgent problem at the time was that the little creche was over crowded and needed to be registered for them to qualify for the subsidy… the registration process led us into understanding that the whole housing development had never received their individual title deeds, and so the process began of wanting to assist the principal of the school to be registered and try and find a bigger place to accommodate all the children that needed a place of learning.
It became evident throughout the years of working with the community there had been a conflict within the community after the housing development began. Each one got their houses, but the community of people had been split due to disagreements, and no one had received their title deeds. After spending many many weeks and months in a small container registering individual ID numbers with ERF numbers, we were able to kick start the process of people receiving their title deeds. The original housing development, named Umzi Craft Village at the time, was envisioned to be a self-sustainable and community driven initiative that would make everyone living there economically self-sufficient. Once we understood this, and were told that the community site was still open, we began the process of purchasing the site. With the incredible dedication, commitment and generosity of Give Hope, in 2016 we bought the land and were able to take title due to the fact that we had sorted out the stumbling block of no one being able to receive their title deeds.
As our work continued, we began to understand the importance of working with the community to build a solid foundation for the dream of a family centre to become a reality. The work or working with communities is becoming more urgent than anyone in this country will understand.
The members of the community were unable to resolve a conflict, without the assistance of a skilled mediator. This is an ongoing process and the work will be ongoing. In order for the project to be sustainable, this is paramount. Also, the leadership of the area needs further skills to work on a project of this scale.
In 2024 ALET formed a task team within the community to begin working on capacity building of community members. This process has been priceless as each member of the task team begins finding and accessing their skills and talents to bring the vision into reality.
During 2025 the task team has begun working on creating solid and good governance structures to bring the vision of the centre alive.
Non-Profit Organisation:
NPO 064-942
Public Benefit Organisation:
PBO 930 035 321
Trust: IT1251/2007
