1. Financial Support

• Core grants are small grants to cover salaries and administration costs of each partner LDA, and are transferred into the LDA's banking account on a monthly or quarterly basis depending on the capacity of each organisation to manage it's finances. Each grant is based on an LDA's budget and objectives for the year and Scat's sustainability strategy. The core grants enable organisations to ensure that the telephone and rent are paid and that some staff earn salaries. Scat believes that these core grants are developmental because they enable LDAs to make their own decisions and also create the opportunity for each LDA to mobilize other resources.
  
  
• Fundraising Incentive Scheme (FRIS) provides an incentive to LDAs which manage to raise funds in their local community, in the ratio of R5 for every R1 raised. The types of events through which they raise money and for which rewards are paid are carnivals, dances, cooking competitions, sport tournaments, food sales, clothing sales and a range of cultural performances. LDAs are innovative and their efforts often result in the main social event/s in their community. They also work in partnership with other organisations in communities in order to avoid competition and to strengthen relationships.
  
  
• Development Fund for Training through which LDAs may apply for specific funding for training to develop capacity and skills of their staff and volunteers and/or for the organisation itself to run workshops in the community to further develop the capacity of active community groups. A budgeted allocation is claimed as needed and claims are approved according to criteria set by Scat. The development activities for which funds are requested include paralegal training, driver's license training, development facilitation skills training, workshops focused on gender, local government roles and responsibilities, small business development and issue based needs as these arise in a community.
  
  
• HIV/AIDS Fund for Development is a similar additional and more specific fund for which LDAs may apply to do capacity building work related to HIV and AIDS. To qualify the LDA must submit plans in advance. These plans are screened by Scat field workers and the HIV and AIDS Programme Coordinator. LDAs mostly claim for prevention and other awareness programmes in their community and to attend training events which develop their capacity to implement their HIV and AIDS programmes. Typically these would include HIV and AIDS and the law, HIV and AIDS and the workplace and HIV and TB.

2. Field support and general capacity building

• Field support is through on-site and regional fieldwork. A field worker is allocated to each LDA and becomes the primary inter-face with Scat. Scat fieldworkers are development practitioners who provide guidance, monitor and evaluate progress and assist LDAs in their linking, brokering and advocacy roles. All Scat fieldworkers speak the language of the communities with which they work. The relationship between Scat and its LDA partners is based on an annual contractual agreement which is derived from each LDA's own internal evaluation, planning and budgeting and which sets the scene for the fieldworker's monitoring and support activities. At the start of each LDA's funding cycle, Scat's commitment for the year is incorporated into a formal partnership agreement.


• General organisational Capacity Building and training are offered by Scat's fieldworkers and programmes cover committee skills, fundraising, financial management, project management, community research, HIV, AIDS and local economic development issues.

3. Brokering partnerships

Scat believes that, in order for there to be sustainable development, partnerships between communities, civil society, government and business must be negotiated and nurtured. The Scat fieldworkers work with the LDAs to promote and understanding of partnerships, to identify potential partners and to make linkages. Partnerships with local government are of particular importance to integrated development of the community. Scat plays an active role in brokering partnerships with the local private sector wherever possible and in Nababeep for example, has brokered a potentially sustainable partnership between the LDA and Pick n Pay. Not only will Pick n Pay be the market for the produce of the local food gardens, it is also funding the development of this project with Scat as facilitator.

4. HIV and AIDS

As a response to a request from project partners, and complementary to the HIV and AIDS development fund mentioned above, Scat initiated an HIV and Aids Activator Programme some years ago. This ongoing programme focuses on intensifying the development of local responses to HIV and AIDS in a rural development context, and according to the specific needs of each participating community. Scat provides an additional grant to the qualifying LDAs for the implementation of the programme and facilitates skills development.

To date, the outcomes are multifaceted responses to the situation including dealing with stigma, home based care, counseling and support, food security and also ensuring the protection of the rights of HIV positive people and their families. The programme started with six activator sites and has grown to thirty two activator sites over a period of three years.

5. Local economic development (LED)

Scat has developed an LED response which enhances the efforts of our LDA partner organisations. We have on our staff a specialist who supports the fieldworkers in working with LDAs on their LED projects. This work includes assessing the feasibility of projects, helping the LDA to find markets for products and building capacity in small business development. Additional small grants are also provided for further training, development of business plans and capitalization of projects.

6. Gender

Scat places women at the centre of our gender policy. This does not mean that Scat sees gender as a 'women's issue'. We recognize that the gender inequities that prevail in our society are based on biased stereotyping, which traps men as well as women, heterosexuals as well as persons with different sexual orientations. We recognize too, that gendered discrimination is a complex matter, deeply imbedded in culture, religion, racialised loyalties and history. It is a radical discrimination, firmly sustained through unbridled violence against women and through deliberately designed economic and class systems that view as inevitable - even acceptable - the fact that large numbers of people live in abject poverty.

Of these people living in poverty, the vast majority are women and many of those women are rural women. For centuries women have been systematically deprived of basic human rights and essential survival resources - including reproductive rights and the right to own land. In many local cultures and settings they are still deprived of these rights in practice, despite the protection and freedoms enshrined in South Africa's world-renowned Constitution and Bill of Rights.

So, for now, Scat places women at the centre of a crosscutting gender policy that guides our efforts to effect social change. We do whatever we can to create spaces in which women can find and renew their own inherent power; in which they are recognized and supported as leaders; in which they have access to information and learning opportunities; in which they feel safe - both physically and to express their views; in which their contributions are recognized and they are affirmed.

At programme level for example, a criteria for a rural local development agency (LDA) to receive funding from Scat is that women should be represented at all levels of that organization, and particularly in decision making positions - whether these be as members of staff or of community-based governance structures. The intention is to increase the status of women in rural communities, giving them access to capacity building opportunities, either through workshops run by Scat or by providing funds for women to attend training opportunities outside the scope of Scat's training. This intention applies in the access to justice, local economic development and the HIV and AIDS programmes.

Placing women at the centre does not mean Scat ignores men. For example, we are working closely with men in a context which offers them many opportunities to change - that of HIV and AIDS. It is our observation that there is a view that women should deal with HIV and AIDS. Women are indeed more likely to be infected with the virus - often through no fault of their own; more likely to carry the burden of care for those who become sick with opportunistic diseases; more likely to be blamed for their children's behaviour and for the transmission of the virus to their new babies; more likely to travel huge distances for health care and more likely to be subjected to violence. But, these factors do not make women responsible. On the contrary, Scat believes that a balanced participation of men - together with the improved status of women - will contribute to more effective prevention programmes and ultimately, a transformation of gender relations. With this in mind, Scat also works to increase the level of participation by men in care and support programmes. We trust that through men's direct experience of the burdens of those living with HIV or AIDS and of those who care for them, the men will become more aware and more active in spreading a prevention and care message to their peers.

As an organisation, Scat employs men and women. However, whenever there is a vacancy Scat pays particular attention to exploring opportunities for women to join the staff or our governing trust. Our staff policies - for men and women - include a child care policy, child sick leave, generous parental leave and a sexual harassment policy.

We recognize that change does not happen overnight and that many issues challenge us on a day-to-day basis. It remains our sincere belief that gender equity is at the core of a transformed society.