Kuyasa Empowerment
Hat in Stellenbosch

We have seen the growth and leadership becomes fully integrated into who they are and their full identity.
Kuyasa is using a system of 6 separate Levels of Support and filtering to sift the youth of our community.
Transitioned from our Film Project & the Hats & Glasses Leadership Team to train in Digital Photography at Media Village and outreach in Mozambique.

The person must first be freed from the deprivation trap (i.e. survival mode, feelings of dependency) so that he can meet his basic human needs. If his basic needs are met by outsiders he will remain dependent and never be free. Developers must offer themselves to the people and the process. They must demonstrate willingness to serve and learn from the people, they must become involved in the people's efforts to break out of the deprivation trap. The people must have power to accompany participation and the ability/permission to make informed decisions. People must be facilitated to run own their projects. The people are the project, there is no development or transformation of communities before there is development and transformation of the people in them. The centre itself is on a small holding consisting of 2 old farm houses and a barn. As we educate, empower and equip, we desire to have the means to move a select group forward; giving them greater and greater opportunity along with increasing responsibility & challenges to overcome. The goal, of course, is to identify the strongest leaders in the community and to offer them the opportunity to meet their full potential through a wholistic and experience-based, hands-on learning. The entire process that moves them through the Levels of Support emphasizes that a true leader will empower those around him/her. Abuse in the past or in their current living situation will also keep them from dreaming and developing vision. Level two equips youth & children with the most basic building blocks and skills to empower them to dream and move toward a purposeful, goal-oriented life. o Youth & children who have not had role models to look up to must be equipped with the basics of healthy emotional and social living. This includes decision making & problem solving skills as well as learning to communicate feelings and thoughts appropriately. In Level Three we seek to sift and test the youth in our programs by offering them opportunity to lead and serve in various capacities. This experience-based and hands-on learning allows the children & youth to experience many of the same type of challenges they would face in leadership as adults. Staff walk along side them to solve problems, but facilitate a learning process that allows the youth to find the solution themselves, thus building confidence and capacity. They are put in supervisory roles, walking alongside staff and are taken into the organization as a kind of junior staff person (though this is not specifically discussed). Youth are given more independence in the running of certain parts of projects and on occasion are paid for the work they do. Small Project Testing: more independence given to test & development leadership as well as event planning and execution (Depending on performance some youth leaders may be paid on a project by project basis) Other training and workshops given as opportunities are found. We hope to gain funding in 2010 that will enable many more strong Leaders from Level Four to move on to Level Five. In this Level leaders should be completely Independent from Kuyasa, for the most part. She was assisted by Kuyasa with funding for her first Module at the Helderberg Nursing College.