Ceres

The Ceres valley is part of South Africa’s fruit export industry. Everything thrives in this fertile and beautiful valley and the ripening fruit in the orchards glints in the late afternoon sunlight. The factories are busy – juicing, canning, preserving – the source of wealth for the Witzenberg Municipality that includes Ceres, Prince Alfred’s Hamlet, Wolseley, Tulbagh, Op-die-Berg and the sparsely populated surrounding farmland.

What challenges face the Advice Office:

But all is not well in paradise following waves of retrenchment and cost-cutting by farmers. Extreme poverty, with its malignant fellow travellers – child malnutrition, substance abuse, depression and hopelessness, domestic violence, has taken root. Many workers are dependent on seasonal work, which means that the income of families drops drastically out of picking or pruning season. Increasing numbers of people are moving here from impoverished areas of the Eastern Cape in search of new opportunities, lured by the possibility of employment. But unemployment is extremely high, with three quarters of the population without work in townships like Nduli and Bella Vista. Many families depend completely on a cash income as there is no access to land or natural resources. Seventy per cent of poor households surveyed recently said that they had been short of food during the previous year and economic apartheid continues to exist. There is a lack of capacity in local government where, it is felt, people are appointed primarily because of their political allegiances and are not measured in terms of the services that they provide for the people.

Efforts have been made to redress the horrible disparity between the rich and the very poor. There have been concerted efforts by some farmers to include farm workers as shareholders on some of the larger, more profitable farms. However access to land, and the capital and skills needed to run a complex agricultural business remains as vexing a question in Ceres as in almost all of South Africa’s commercial farmland. Fractious politics, lack of trust between different groups, and insufficient support, training and capital for emerging farmers doom so many land transfers to failure.

HIV & AIDS infections are increasing in the Ceres area, exacerbated by the poverty that is endemic among at least a quarter of the people here. Very high rates of tuberculosis and increasingly high incidences of transactional sex and sexual assault make for a very vulnerable population. The fragile links necessary within a community need to be maintained and strengthened if their fight against the disease is to be successful. The overwhelming majority of those infected are young people, especially young women. The seemingly intractable problems of gender, poverty and the mass unemployment of the young must be resolved to avoid the heart of this place from rotting from within.

Objectives and Programmes:

To facilitate access to justice through the following interventions: legal advice, mediations, regular consultations with community members, assistance with CCMA Preparations, appropriate referrals, workshops focussing on the rights of farm workers.

Focusing on the rights of farm workers in partnership with the Premiers office and the Department of Social Development by establishing a farm worker forum which deals with issues like children not being able to attend school due to the lack of transport and ntervening during forced removals. 

Engagement with farm workers with regards to capacity building (mostly female workers) through various training workshops that focus on areas such as voter education, unfair labour practices and dismissals as well as consumer rights. 

Mass HIV & AIDS Mobilisation strategies that provide the platform for capacity building around HIV as well as to increase face to face interventions. 

Youth development through a series of regular meetings which provide a space for debate and networking for young people from the surrounding towns like Ceres, Prince Alfred’s Hamlet, Tulbagh and Nduli. These ventures give young people the opportunity to improve their communication skills and debating skills whilst debating various relevant social, political and economic topics like the education crisis or the new premier of the Western Cape.

Ceres Advice Office
Witzenberg Advice Office

45 Lyell Street.

P.O. Box 623

CERES, 6835

Tel: 023-316 2235

Fax: 023 316 2234

Email: ceres@lda.org.za

Contact: David Arendse