Ubuntu Rural Women and Youth Movement

The overall mission of Ubuntu is to ensure women and youth lead efforts for change in their own lives. Ubuntu grew out of the mobilization work of its founder Wendy Pekeur.

Our Constituency & Geographic Focus Areas: The primary Ubuntu constituency is defined as women and youth who live in informal settlements and squatter camps in rural towns.  Children, the elderly and men in these settlements are secondary constituents. The Ubuntu office is located in Klapmuts community, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Stellenbosch. Our work is concentrated in the Cape Winelands District Municipality of the Western Cape while campaigning and legislation engagements entail national and international partnerships at various levels.

Ubuntu’s primary focus is to ensure communities have all the tools to drive and own change.

Ubuntu aims to improve the living and working conditions of rural communities through building and strengthening their membership organisation ‘Ubuntu’.

The overall objective is to ensure that the rights of rural women are respected and advanced. 

The specific objectives are defined as follows:

1.A strong rural women and youth movement: Through building the structures of the organisation and building the capacity of its membership the objective of the intervention is to ensure that Ubuntu members are able to make strategic decisions and contribute towards the deepening of democracy

1. Rural communities are empowered with knowledge about their constitutional, health, labour, social and land rights: While laws have been passed in parliament, only a very small percentage of people are aware of these rights in law. This intervention is thus aimed at building both the actual knowledge, but also skills and confidence of women and youth to make rights real
2. Rural communities are effectively supported to successfully challenge experiences of health, labour, social and land rights violations: Systems of enforcement and support in cases of rights violations are almost completely absent. While lobbying government for

• changes in this regard remains ongoing, the strategy of this project is to locate the power

• of enforcement with rural communities themselves through building knowledge, confidence and support in asserting rights.

1. Ubuntu stands for the following:

• Democracy,
• Equality,
• No bureaucracy,

5. Ubuntu implements the following activities:

• Building grassroots organisation
• Advice office
• Training and Capacity building
• Support establishment of income-generating projects