Heather Bellamy spoke with Greg Eland from Siyakholwa Development Foundation about the lives they're changing for good in South Africa.

The first one is the Community Work Programme. In South Africa the structural inequality and marginalisation is really handicapping a significant percentage of South African society. That has required a lot of attention. So in response to these challenges Government and NGO's like ourselves have developed the CWP programme, which is designed to provide an employment safety net by providing participants with a predictable number of days work per month. This supplements their existing livelihood strategies, but also affords them a basic level of income and security through work. So instead of getting a handout, participants experience work opportunities.

The programme is targeted at the unemployed, who are over the age of 18 or whose livelihood activities are insufficient to lift them out of poverty. It's implemented at a local site level that comprises a community designed to employ about 1,000 people per site for two days a week, up to a maximum of 100 days.

We're currently implementing agents in Eastern Cape, we're managing eight sites with over 7,200 participants on the programme and our main focus is to administer the pay roll, the attendance register, but also to project manage the identification of general useful work to keep 7,200 people active and productive for their days of work.

The second project is Bright Futures. This programme addresses a lack of knowledge with girls about puberty, intimate relationships, teenage pregnancy, HIV AIDS and finding employment after school. Due to a lack of awareness about these important issues there's been an increased number of school drop outs and absenteeism. So we run a reproductive and puberty education programme in schools called Protecting Futures. We've taken about 3,000 learners through this programme.

Heather: How many people do you help as a foundation every year?

Greg: That's a difficult question because it's not just about the numbers, but about individual change and meaningful impact. But over the years Siyakholwa has impacted thousands of lives and families. More specifically, through the CWP programme, the stipend that goes to the 7,200 participants also reaches families who rely on the small amount of money. We've calculated that impacts about 25,000 people a month. Through our education and training programmes, we've trained on our sites over the last five years, probably about 3,000 people in a variety of our different courses and programmes.

Heather: Can you sum up what difference you're making to people's lives?

Greg: I think a good way to answer that question is the story of the starfish and the little boy. He was trying to rescue all of these starfish that had come up on the beach shore and he was throwing them back in to the sea. A man came up to him and said, "What are you doing?" And the little boy said, "Can't you see? There are so many starfish here and they need to be saved." The man looked at the boy and asked, "What difference are you going to make?" And the boy picked up a starfish and he threw it back in to the sea and he said, "It makes a difference to this one." That's our heart, making a difference to a person, to a family and then often it changes the community.

More specifically, we are giving stipends that people can eat. There's a lot of poverty in the communities that we work in. I think secondly we're contributing to the development of public assets and services in poor communities. We're strengthening the economic climate for poor people in different areas, providing work experience and I think importantly for me is enhancing dignity and promoting social and economic inclusion. And also introducing people to God, a Father who loves them and can change their lives forever is very important to us.

Heather: It's a lot of information to take in. Have you got a story of a particular person that's been impacted, to paint a picture through their lives of what your work is about?

Masixole Magwevana

Greg: Yes, it's about changing people's lives. There is a young man by the name of Masixole Magwevana. He came on to our programme and he hadn't finished school; he was unemployed and he started journeying with us. He became a participant and was faithful in that. Then he became a supervisor and then we actually employed him full time with Siyakholwa.

I remember doing some training with him and we were talking about purpose and destiny and what he wants to do in his future. He wrote something down and said he wanted to be a paramedic. He wasn't at that place from an educational point of view and just where he was with his life, but over the years and just walking and being mentored, about two years ago he got an opportunity to go and train to be a paramedic. Then last year I got a knock on our door at our offices and there was Masixole in his paramedic uniform. He said, "Greg, I want to come and show you something." He took me down to his ambulance and showed me what he's doing and how his life has changed. He said to me, "Greg, we just want to thank you guys for the input and the love and the mentoring. I could never have got to where I was if it wasn't for an organisation like Siyakholwa."

Heather: That's awesome. Can you describe a bit wider now what poverty is like in South Africa? Because in the UK we talk about people living in poverty, and we genuinely do have poverty here, but in Africa it's a different thing altogether.

Greg: Some of the latest statistics say that about 21% of South Africans live in extreme poverty; in other words not being able to pay for basic nutritional requirements. One of the statistics that really concerns me is that about 53% of people can afford enough food and non-food items, but they're surviving on under about 779 rand per month, so that's about £43 a month. I think despite all the efforts to try and reduce poverty in South Africa, many people are struggling. We see it on a grass roots level when people come and we train them and spend time with them and guys sometimes haven't eaten for a few days, so it's still a big problem in South Africa.