Otsile Bokamoso, an after-school educational organisation, has helped thousands of learners through the support of a local community trust. Pictured here is its founder, Sophile Motsumi, along with some of the students. Photo: Motlatsi Mofokeng
Otsile Bokamoso is an after-school educational organisation whose name means “The future is bright”. Based in Dealesville, a small mixed-farming town in the Free State, it provides academic support to learners in the grades one to three foundation phase.
Founder Sophile Motsumi was volunteering at a primary school when she realised that many children in these grades struggle academically and still cannot read and write by the time they reach grade four.
“I realised some of the children end up dropping out of school because the foundation was never correct,” she said.
She set up Otsile Bokamoso in 2018 and over the past eight years has helped at least 2 000 learners in her community and created employment for four people. The Letsatsi Solar Park Trust started supporting her organisation in 2023, helping her to set up governance structures, providing equipment, grant funding, and training on an evidence-based maths programme designed to enhance the organisation’s impact.
The trust has also contributed to strengthening Otsile Bokamoso’s branding and marketing efforts.
“We now have children who read to understand and because of what we are doing at Otsile Bokamoso, their future is bright,” Motsumi said.
Community trusts
The community trust that has helped her organisation was created by the nearby Letsatsi Solar Plant, a 75MW solar photovoltaic project that is part of South Africa’s renewable energy programme.
Community trusts are a cornerstone of independent power producer projects, and are crucial for delivering tangible benefits to local communities. Mandated by the government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement programme since 2011, these trusts are designed to ensure that a portion of the profits of renewable energy projects are shared with the people who live near them.
The renewable energy programme requires independent power producers not only to generate clean energy, but also to invest in local upliftment through job creation and the establishment of a local community trust that has a minimum 2.5% ownership of the renewable energy project.
The trusts allocate revenue to enterprise development, skills training and infrastructure. They are mandated to invest in black communities within a 50km radius of the power project, and ensure sustainable, long-term impacts.
The Letsatsi Solar Park Trust was formed in 2012 and started implementation in 2018. It owns 7.5% of the Letsatsi Solar Park project, with funding secured for 20 years and the possibility of a 10-year extension thereafter.
To understand how community trusts function on a daily basis, and to witness the real-world effect they have, Oxpeckers recently visited the trust and engaged directly with its beneficiaries.
Letsatsi Solar Park Trust
The trust says it has received more than R94-million since its inception, benefiting local communities in Dealesville and Soutpan, another town about 30km away.
Its latest annual report shows that 54% of this amount has been allocated to the DG Murray Trust (DGMT), a public innovator foundation, for strategy and implementation of community engagement; the remaining 45% to the Rural Education Access Programme, a non-profit organisation that provides holistic support to students from low-income households in rural areas who are funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
“All commissions first have to be approved by the board of trustees, of which two members are from the local communities,” explained Sinazo Nkwelo, innovation director at the DG Murray Trust.
Reducing school dropouts
“We monitor what the needs for the community are, and we then present a proposal to the board of trustees to approve funding. For the board to approve the funding, DGMT has to motivate and be clear about what the project is going to be doing and how what they are doing is linked to our strategy for the trust.”
One of the DG Murray Trust strategies for Letsatsi Trust is to reduce school dropouts in the two communities, Nkwelo said.
“So what we do is we identify initiatives that can solve the problem within the community, and when we cannot find any in the community we then have to look outside the immediate community. From there we give motivation for funding, explaining the number of people who will be touched and the number of jobs to be created by the programmes.”
Trust beneficiaries
Dithoriso Mphuthi is the project coordinator of a beneficiary organisation called Flourish that offers free antenatal and postnatal classes to pregnant and new mothers in the communities of Dealesville and Soutpan.
Flourish educates mothers about maternal health issues, and its main aim is to reduce the level of malnutrition in babies in these communities. Since its inception in 2022, Flourish has touched the lives of more than 500 mothers in both communities.
“We see fewer stunted children in the communities now. We see mothers who are no longer drinking and smoking when they are pregnant and we see how most mothers are now exclusively breastfeeding their infants for six months,” Mphuthi said.
Another beneficiary is Tlhabologang, a daycare facility for elderly people in Soutpan that takes care of 30 men and women daily, and has employed two staff members.
Founded by Sabata Ramatha, 75, in 2005, the daycare centre gives hope to older people, some living in their homes alone with no family, some having to take care of babies whose parents have passed away and some having no food to eat the whole day in their homes.
“They are so happy here. When they started attending the daycare, many were sick and depressed, but today they smile more, talk more and have even gained weight,” said Letshego Moeketsi, who is the organisation’s coordinator.
The long-term vision is for Tlhabologang to become a fully operational home for the older people of Soutpan, she said.
Community coordinators
Tlholohelo Ramosoeu, community programme coordinator for the trust, said one of the main challenges it faces is that there are always emerging needs in these communities.
She explained that many programmes are adapted from other regions, but even when rural contexts seem similar, emerging needs require constant evaluation.
“We’re learning as we go, engaging with the community, and working with our implementing partners to identify gaps in funding and programme structures.”
Ramosoeu noted that they often play the role of community coordinators. “We ensure that other entities meant to serve the community are delivering necessary services. We work in early childhood development, education, and health. When government services fall short, we step in to create an environment where positive change can happen,” she said.
“For example, when communities faced severe water shortages, we collaborated with the municipality and launched a borehole repair programme to restore water access,” Ramosoeu added.
Dikeledi Mokhoabane, one of the two community trustees on the trust’s board, said she has witnessed how the lives of people in Soutpan have improved in recent years.
The role of a community trustee is to identify problems in the community, present them to the board and work with stakeholders to ensure that the challenges are addressed.
“Through the community-based organisations, we have seen how the learner marks are improved,” she said. “We are no longer struggling with high dropout rates in our schools, and we have more healthy children through the Flourish programme.
“I am confident that, moving forward with Letsatsi Trust, our community will continue to improve and more lives will be saved through these social programmes,” she said.
This Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism report was supported by the African Climate Foundation’s New Economy Hub.
Find details about these and other projects on the #PowerTracker digital tool here.
