Page 7 - SCAT Rural Voice II - 35 Stories for 35 Years

oUR tRustees
The SCAT Trustees keep the organisation’s governance in check. In this section they
share their views on the work of SCAT.
A CHORUS OF VOICES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
By nkosikhulule Xhawulengweni nyembezi
Rural Voice II: 35 Stories for 35 Years is yet another opportunity for many voices in the Social Change Assistance Trust (SCAT) to tell stories about our collective efforts to bring about social change.
We want to use this occasion of our 35th anniversary to publicly thank our grantee partners, supporters, public and private donors for their work, and remind them of just how important they are. We opted for the idea of this book, as an anchor to our celebrations. We don’t want this anniversary to so much be about understanding our milestones through a single voice. Instead, as a Trust, we also want beneficiaries to be able to use it to tell their stories and to say their own personal thanks.
As trustees, we also see and identify with our governance role as reflected in these stories- in the voices that are part of these conversations in so far as they also project the multidimensional aspects in the governance of SCAT. Several adaptations and faithful implementation of our bottom-up approach have enabled us to promote locally driven solutions to access to justice, gender equality, youth empowerment, delivery of basic services to communities and ensuring household food security. This is achieved through sustained partnerships with civil society organisations that share the same vision as ours, to promote social justice and learning.
While our adopted theory of change has taken our work this far in our resource constrained environment, and while several reports on our work over the years remain helpful in deepening the understanding of challenges we have overcome, they are insufficient in the presentation of who we are as a SCAT family. Our stories complete the picture. one might, as one reads these accounts, think about how these stories could have been told otherwise, and how the alternative telling would have changed the outcome. Hopefully, the experience will energise each one of us to work together to do more in the next 35 years and beyond, to ensure that poverty, inequality and other social ills are eradicated.
nkosikhulule XhAwulenGweni nyeMbezi chAirperson
sue Anderson Vice chAirperson
khoboso nthunyA proGrAMMes
VAlerie JonAthAn FinAnce
RuRal Voice ii: 35 stories for 35 years
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