Berlin is one of a scatter of villages on the rolling hills between East London and Bisho, now capital of the Eastern Cape and formerly capital of the Ciskei, one of South Africa’s iniquitous ‘homelands’. Houses sprawl over the eroded soil.
Burgersdorp lies north of Queenstown. The road sweeps through grass plains and distant blue hills towards Aliwal North and the Free State. This is the heart of merino sheep-farming country. Burgersdorp – which means Town of Citizens – was established by Voortrekkers in 1846. Deeply conservative, it was never an easy place in which to live.
Dordrecht lies nestled in the Stormberg Mountains, just north of Queenstown between Middelburg and Durban. Its many historical buildings and museum display turn-of-the-century furniture and clothing. It is a small town surrounded by a number of farms with a large number of merino sheep and cattle ranchers in the region. Farmers around Dordrecht also grow potatoes.
The rural town of Hofmeyr lies in the shadow of the Bamboes Mountain Range in the Karoo. This beautiful mountain range that, depending on the time of day, ranges in colour from purple red in the mornings to a deep smoky blue in the late afternoons, begins in Molteno and forms part of the Drakensberg escarpment as it enters the Eastern Cape.
Masiphakameni is isiXhosa for “Let’s stand up”, an appropriate name for a Local Development Agency (LDA) that has taken a stand against injustice and ill health.
Wilo/Mqanduli Community Advice Centre
C/o Department of Agriculture premises
Private Bag X 569
MQANDULI, 5080 Tel/Fax: 047 573 1041 Contact: Clarence Xiniwe
Port St. Johns is a small costal town along South Africa's Wild Coast. While labeled the "Jewel of the Wild Coast" and sold to tourists as a place with "rustic authenticity'. The Port St. Johns legal Advice Centre services six of the 16 wards in the area. Through funding from Scat a bee-keeping project is underway and has created work for five women and four men.
Tshatshu, between Queenstown and Lady Frere, is very rural and very beautiful, perched high on a hill looking out over a perfect valley dotted with rondavels and kraals. Most people rely on pensions or remittances from family members working in faraway towns for the cash necessary for survival in the remotest rural areas.
The Interchurch Local Development Agency (ILDA) is located in Uitenhage which is 45 kilometres from Port Elizabeth and falls within the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro (NMBM).
ILDA is one of Scat's five Mentor LDA's, providing mentorship and peer to peer support to other LDAs partnered with Scat.
