Scat's vision

A South Africa with vibrant sustainable rural communities.

Scat's mission

To partner with rural community-owned organisations in order to contribute effectively to rights-based endeavors that improve the quality of life in their communities.

Background information

Scat is an award-winning human rights NGO, which focuses on supporting community-based organisations through providing funds, fieldwork support and capacity building. Scat has been in existence for more than 20 years and has an excellent track record in development. Each year Scat typically supports about 60 rural community-based organisations in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape, North West and Free State Provinces. In order to qualify for support from Scat, organisations must meet the criteria of being rural, community-governed, accountable and transparent, with women participating at all levels in the organisation and membership open to all in the community.

What is an LDA?

Scat refers to its partners as Local Development Agencies (LDAs). In most instances these are Advice Offices which, in addition to offering paralegal advice to members of the community, deal with issues of local government service delivery, accessibility of social security, land tenure and redistribution, income generation, job creation, protection of employment rights, women�s empowerment and the protection of minority groups in their communities.

History of Scat

Scat was initiated by its three founder trustees subsequent to discussions with members of the Norwegian Government and the Church of Norway who used to visit the country during the dark years of apartheid. The discussions confirmed mutual concern about the high levels of poverty, lack of access to resources and violations of human rights in the country, more especially in rural areas. The Norwegians responded by assisting our founder trustees in the formation of Scat, which they used to channel funding to support the building of a strong civil society, thus making it possible for marginalized rural communities to have access to resources.