Community

While supporting key wildlife conservation partnerships through strategic monitoring, research and management, we also work tirelessly to make sure that rural communities living adjacent to the protected areas benefit from these wilderness areas – and incorporate sustainable rangeland and natural resource management on communal areas.

Our Strategic Community Partnerships and Biodiversity Social Community Projects support local partners’ needs and aspirations. Aiming to achieve much more than just job creation, we are seeking to extend the benefits to local supply-chain sourcing; the procurement of arts, crafts and fresh produce; and supporting rural economies through enterprise development and use of local service providers.

In turn, communities deriving benefit and value from these protected areas and surrounding catchments are often proud conservation ambassadors and long-term custodians supporting the survival of these wilderness areas for generations to come.

The SLT has two flagship Community Partnership Projects:

• The Holistic Early Childhood Development Support Programme (ECD) supports principals, teachers and parents to help 1 714 children at 17 participating preschools to develop physically, cognitively, psychologically and socially.
• The Singita Community Culinary School (SCCS) offers a rigorous, Singita-crafted professional cookery course that sees young people from local communities graduating with an internationally recognised certificate, ready to put their newly acquired world-class skills to work as commis chefs.

We have a long-standing commitment to digital literacy – most recently through a partnership with the Good Work Foundation, an independent NGO, which operates world-class digital learning campuses in the region. From 2018-2020, the SLT was the key sponsor of the Justicia Digital Learning Campus. 

Other key community partnership projects:

• SLT’s Teaching and Technology Programme, in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Mpumalanga Department of Education, has equipped primary schools with satellite technology and devices, and trained teachers to utilise technology in the classroom.
• Our Enterprise Development Support enabled David Shilabi, a former employee of Singita, to establish a small-scale farming enterprise that’s become a major supplier to Singita’s kitchens.
• A partnership with the Dreamfields Sports Development Programme brought soccer and netball leagues to 13 local schools to support students’ physical and social development.

The SLT’s community partnership programmes have seen many success stories unfold over the years. To read more about these inspiring projects, click here

The SLT also provided extensive support to vulnerable communities during the Covid lockdown periods.