Goedgedacht

In celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the Path out of Poverty Programme we are launching a new campaign:
 
10 000 olive trees planted at Goedgedacht  to support 10 000 children on the Path out of Poverty from 5 POP centres in the next ten years (2018).

Most people will know by now that Goedgedacht farm has, since 1993, been planted with olive groves. The olives are part of our effort to provide ongoing funds for the development work of the Trust. So far we have planted 9000 trees on 27 ha of land.  We still have enough land to plant another
10 000.
 
After ten years we are convinced that the Path out of Poverty offers new hope to rural children who still live their lives without hope for the future.The POP model has been noticed and is now ready to be replicated in other places.
 
We plan to replicate our POP programme in 4 other centres.
 
1.   In Ga Phasha , a small rural community in Limpopo we  have completed a community enumeration and will soon be starting a youth project and a pre-school in partnership with Xstrata Mining. 
2.   We are busy with a acommunity enumeration at  Riebeek Kasteel (Esterhof) where we have bought land from the Swartland Municipality . The plans for a POP centre are in the Council. .  
3. We are negotiating with the VGK church in Riebeek West for land for a POP centre there and have complete a community enumeration.
4.  We have been invited by the Elandskloof community to start working with their youth. As this community is currently under the administration of the Dept. of Lands we are writing a proposal for them.
 
We are hoping to find funding partners for the POP centres at Esterhof, Riebeek West and Elandskloof.  Goedgedacht farm will be the mother programme and we are keen to share our ideas with other organisations that might wish to start POP centres too. 

This is a picture of a second generation POP candidate taking his first steps on the Path Out of Poverty clutching his olive tree - his name is Shacquille Arendse  (Killer for short!) . His Mum, Mary Anne, was one of the first young people into our youth programme in 1998. She is now a fulltime employee of the programme working as part of the Pre-school staff team.

So please plant an olive tree or 10 000 olive trees at Goedgedacht Farm!  To grow into trees that bear fruit. Fruit that will be pressed into extra virgin olive oil and sold, the proceeds of which will help grow rural children out of poverty so that they may reach their full potential. Help us to eradicate poverty so that we can start to grow peace in Africa.