WILDLANDS is set to improve the lives of the communities where WILDLANDS work through a programme known as the Rural Sustainable Enterprise Development and Skill Strengthening Programme, made possible by a grant from the Walmart Foundation. This programme will work to enable local community members, including existing WILDLANDS *Green-preneurs, across three Northern KwaZulu-Natal regions which include the KwaGumbi, Mandlakazi, KwaJobe, Dube and Sokhulu rural communities to be trained and mentored in small business skills over the next three years.
South Africa’s rural communities are neglected, with little or no opportunity or clear pathways for progress. It is in these under-resourced rural areas where unemployment is the most acute. Education level of completion is low, and job opportunities and livelihood creation are scarce which further exacerbates the dependence on social grants.
The Walmart Foundation supports non-profit organizations across the globe, improving lives through three core pillars of work focused in opportunity, sustainability, and community. Key initiatives center on providing access to safe and healthy food, building responsible supply chains, creating career opportunities, and strengthening communities.
“We are proud to support WILDLANDS and the Rural Sustainable Development and Skill Strengthening Programme, which we believe will impart lasting skills that can be shared across communities,” said Karrie Denniston, Senior Director, Walmart Foundation. “We believe sustainable development in rural communities can be accelerated through direct skills building and growth of entrepreneurship, which addresses local needs and challenges.”
WILDLANDS aim, after the three years of the programme, is to have over 200 individuals running successful and sustainable small businesses, improving the lives of their own families and those of their fellow community members.
“We welcome the Walmart Foundation’s support to enable WILDLANDS to take forward this significant rural livelihood development opportunity,” said Louise Duys, WILDLANDS Director of Partnerships. “Not only does it give us the chance to build on WILDLANDS’ existing presence in these rural communities through a deeper, more meaningful level of skills strengthening but through the programme we can also ensure that there is a transfer of environmental understanding and therefore impact.”
The New Venture Creation Skills Programme that the individuals will attend is a NQF level 2 accredited programme. The course structure will include facilitated training sessions, practical assignments that contribute to the development of their businesses and support from local mentors.
Over the next three years, this programme sets out to address a need in five of South Africa’s most impoverished rural communities, across three northern KwaZulu-Natal districts.
Manqoba Sabela, WILDLANDS’ Strategic Manager comments, “Last week saw the launch of the New Venture Creation Skills Programme where 49 community members gathered across two locations to commence their training. The programme will provide an opportunity for individuals, recruited from WILDLANDS’s legacy *Green-preneur networks in these communities, to start and sustainably establish their own small businesses, through the provision of training, mentorship and start-up stock. In so doing they will secure a supplementary livelihood for themselves and their extended family unit. In addition, we will encourage the small businesses to focus on Green Economy business options that will provide more sustainable alternatives for improving the lives of the local community members and assist with reversing the negative impact on the environment of current unsustainable local practices.”
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)