BWEF believes in shifting the power dynamic to enable the communities we support to lead the process of change and take ownership of the outcomes. This shift in the relationship dynamic is essential for real empowerment and sustainability.
Barloworld Limited, as part of their new BBBEE initiative “Khula Sizwe” have established a Foundation whereby, through its Broad Based Ownership Scheme, a number of shares have been allocated to the Foundation solely for the purpose of improving the lives of mainly black women, youth and people with disabilities living in rural, peri-urban and urban South Africa in the following focus areas:
Education
Entrepreneurship
Youth Development
Environment
Social Empowerment
The design and formation of foundations and charitable organisations often starts with a concerned social actor identifying a social need and then setting themselves to design and implement the process towards addressing the said seen social need.
An actor who takes on the position of knowing what should be done, who is in need and how best to do this. Often coming with the administrative machinery to effectively set about the process of creating change. Change as a necessary end should be quantifiable and recorded as a means to justify the work done and the existence of such actors.
In this traditional casting of social change or development, there are often the “haves” who are also the main drivers and actors. These actors act on behalf of the so-called “have nots” who are the beneficiaries for whom we act to affect change. This dynamic often creates a power dynamic where the principle actors determine, scale, and define the scope of development and change. Disempowered communities have learnt the power dynamics of powerlessness and often feel the challenges are beyond them. This power dynamic in part takes away people’s power and the beneficiaries of these projects have to be active role players who must move from the margins and own the process in a matter that empowers, enables and holds them accountable.
The Barloworld Foundation has an opportunity to reorganise these relationships. This is an important moment to reset and recast not only the process of development but how the Foundation will cast itself.
*Click to view more
Communities are dynamic, have capacity for resilience and people know what they want and need, having the vision and a desired aspiration for their loves, families, and communities.
Ideas of change and movement can only be led by the ‘beneficiaries’ themselves if they become active actors.
The idea of the passive beneficiary creates warped power dynamics between people and resources. The power relations hinder the development of relationships, creativity and problem solving by the people most affected by the problem.
Development and change are a complex process where one can isolate or look at a singular factor as causal.
It is important to be able to measure impact and development in different terms. Not only do people know what they want, have a sense of what they would do given a chance, but they can speak for themselves. In this process the foundation allows people to speak for themselves in accounting for the impact of the process and projects.
Every community has forgotten, unrecognised assets; leadership, the ways money and resources are made, generated, and shared and stories, experiences and knowledge bases.
There are powerful stories and storytellers in every community and locale, these stories may be the root to lead us new perspectives and alternative ways of looking at those communities seen as lacking in value.
Development and change are a complex process where one can isolate or look at a singular factor as causal.
It is important to be able to measure impact and development in different term. Not only do people know what they want, have a sense of what they would do given a chance, but they can speak for themselves. In this process the foundation allows people to speak for themselves in accounting for the impact of the process and projects.
The idea or understanding of data is crucial to this paradigm. The idea is to create data with a face, name, and story.
To move beyond the spreadsheets of faceless numbers to an output that allows people to show their communities, narrate their histories, show the unseen treasures. Through these outputs, we can trace the impact of work done through the foundation, with the communities we choose to work with.
