Hartbeespoort Community Development Initiative (HCDI) NPO

The Elevate Prize Funding and support would go a long way in ensuring that Hartbeespoort Community Development Initiative (HCDI) NPO becomes fully capacitated to provide a truly efficient and effective service to the community that we serve. 

Office space where the organisation can function to its full capability is lacking. Currently the organisation operates from my home, which becomes inconvenient for my family and especially my young children who encounter staff, volunteers, and a string of community members seeking assistance on a daily basis. Security becomes compromised. 

Lack of proper office equipment, furniture, and vehicles results in our services being compromised at times. 

Our staffing compliment also requires bolstering with qualified staff members who can effectively perform functions required to enforce a solid foundation for the organisation. We also require the services of lawyers, auditors, and other external service providers, all of whom charge for their assistance. 

Our marketing and public relations drive requires funding to ensure that we truly reach all corners of the community and assist as many people as possible. 

Funding will also go towards our projects and programmes to ensure a greater impact on the local, national, continental, and international community at large.

I place subscribe to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr who said, "There is no greater purpose in life than to serve your fellow men." In this statement lies the essence of humanity and the cornerstone upon which HCDI's existence came into being. Our services, programmes, and projects are designed to meet the holistic needs of communities we serve and live in thereby contributing to community upliftment and the building of better societies.  

We seek to be the preferred heartbeat and pulse of community activism and be a solution-orientated organisation that is predicated by the embodiment of the ideals of a fair, equitable and just society.

Our formation was motivated by the legacy of inherent socio-economic injustices, disparities in resource allocation, vast inequalities, and the well documented violation of people’s rights by unscrupulous individuals, businesses and government institutions.

Goals for the future - To continue empowering disenfranchised members of our society, through strategic programmes, so they can live and enjoy life to the fullest without being excluded from mainstream economic activities and opportunities. We wish to work towards affording our communities a quality of life consistent with the values enshrined in the United Nations Charter on Human Rights.

PROBLEM

HCDI addresses the lack of a ''bridge'' between the people and government institutions. Through our alive, alert, awake and fearless voice, we are able to intervene, seek recourse for, and hold relevant stakeholders accountable for:  

• Poor service delivery.
• Deplorable public institutions such as clinics and hospitals, coupled with poor service.
• Dysfunctional/obsolete sewage treatment plants. Sewage leaks are a daily occurrence. Our water impoundment reservoir is a haven for the inflow of sewage and industrial effluent. 
• Widespread racism.  
• Discrimination against black state land lease applicants by a minority powered government department. 
• Unfair evictions and abuse of the Rental Housing Act. We enforce compliance on flouting parties whether it be landlord or tenant.
• Exploited, victimized, or abused employees - We demand that relevant authorities perform their duties and protect vulnerable workers.  
• Government and big corporate compliance with international and local laws, including the bill of rights. 
• Language policy in schools where local schools still teach in Afrikaans only thereby excluding the majority. 
• Lack of indigenous language books in local library and proximity of library to disadvantaged communities. 
• We address issues of discrimination against black police officers, preferential treatment of white complainants, and failure by police to investigate matters. 

The new approach we are taking is that we act as the vehicle that takes ordinary citizens to the government, and vice-versa. We realised that an enormous chasm existed between the people and the government institutions set up to assist them. People either did not know where to go for assistance or what to do when faced with challenges. The idea of imposing government buildings, filled with condescending civil servants scares many people such that they suffer in silence. 

There was need for an organisation with heart that could hold the hand of community members and assist them to seek the answers/solutions they needed. 

As a result of our Alive, Awake, Alert, and Fearless approach, we have fast developed into a one-stop solutions-orientated and based organisation. We are a community’s ‘go to’ Centre, a resource for information and guidance, and a concerned partner for community members in distress. We have tackled numerous issues and serviced previously marginalised segments of our communities, thereby ushering in an atmosphere and environment of hope and affording these communities some semblance of dignity.  

We remain a non-political organisation helping to strengthen constitutional democracy and bridging the gap between government and the people. 

HCDI is contributing towards the positive shaping of humanity. We act as a bridge, or a much needed link, between ordinary citizens and the government institutions established to serve them. Our impact is seen daily as community members extend their gratitude for being assisted out of challenges that impede their very existence. Our impact is seen in instances where development is seen to be happening such as when we intervened to ensure that the dilapidated local clinic is upgraded and provides an effective service to the community. Our impact is seen when community members from the suburbs no longer have sewage flowing in the road outside their homes as a result of our intervention. Our impact is demonstrated when general workers who for years have been abused by their employer are awarded back pay by a government institution after our intervention. 

We have been able to add hope and shed some light in the lives of many community members by providing a unique service and advocating for issues thus influencing the behaviour of our local municipality. We also encourage constitutionalism and rule of law, thereby nurturing a society that is truly accepting and tolerant of each other.