Young entrepreneur, Ali Adan from Kiamaiko in Nairobi, Kenya has found great success since completing the Business Courses offered by CAST in 2018. At just twenty years of age, he had already established his own butchery selling goat meat, earning up to 500 Kenyan Shillings (R62,50) a day, but admits that he would spend his money carelessly, without proper budgeting or financial planning. “As the day ended I could not account for the money,” he says. “I had [...]
Mandela spoke these words on the second anniversary of Youth Day in South Africa, This generation of youth stands at the border-line between the past of oppression and repression, and the future of prosperity, peace and harmony. Today's generation of youth face the same challenges on the "border-line" of change. Social issues like drug abuse, fatherlessness, poverty, and HIV/AIDS face the young people today, especially in the communities where CAST works. On Monday, CAST remembered the Soweto uprising [...]
A few weeks ago, we heard about Jupiter, who attended CAST's literacy programme training. CAST's literacy programme is based on another programme called Wordworks, which was established in 2005 to support and improve early language and literacy learning among children from historically disadvantaged communities in South Africa. CAST received book donations for Wordworks from a local book supply company called Books2You. The books were intended to go to Westville Senior Primary, but the school decided to donate them to [...]
This past Saturday, some of our CAST business forum participants from KwaDabeka were able to sell their merchandise at Hope Market in Umhlanga. Hope Market is described as "a community development initiative that offers training and opportunities to emerging entrepreneurs, to generate income and learn from the experience of showcasing their skills, talents and hand-made wares." Meet Buhle (in the picture above, on the right). Buhle first heard about CAST business forum from Themba, who runs a car [...]
Yasmin Adams, CAST's Inner-City Coordinator, has started a program called "Give Your Brain a Hand" for students at Addington Primary School that focuses on developing God-given talents. "Give Your Brain a Hand" is intended to provide a creative outlet for the children in multiple areas, such as arts and crafts, singing, and dancing. The idea behind "Give Your Brain a Hand" is that students can use the talents God has already blessed them with instead of focusing on the [...]
Five years ago, Jupiter and his family fled to South Africa from the Congo. In his home country, Jupiter had worked as a teacher. However, as a refugee in Durban, Jupiter struggled to find work in the area of his passion, education. At first, Jupiter was able to attend the University of KwaZulu-Natal to study Community Development, but when he struggled to renew his refugee status his studies were cut short. Out of necessity, Jupiter began buying [...]
For many years, CAST's Youth Development programme has provided multiple sport ministries for boys. During the last few months, Dale Nunes and Antony Mbugua have started a tennis team specifically for high school girls in KwaDabeka. This exciting new opportunity has provided the girls a safe place to go after school to spend time with their friends and gain confidence in a new skill. On the tennis court, girls are encouraged by the coaches to keep trying new tennis [...]
Themba Dlamini, one of the great success stories to emerge out of CAST's business development programme, has taken his car-wash business to the next level. With dreams of expansion, Themba set out with a mission to purchase a container for his business. This would allow him to have a spaza shop running alongside his carwash so that while customers were waiting, they could hang out, purchase food and drinks and socialise with one another. Last weekend, the passionate [...]
On Tuesday, the 24th September, 100 members of Westville Baptist Church along with 120 members of the Kwadabeka community, came together in a beautiful portrayal of Heritage Day. An initiative powered by CAST- a social outreach non-profit- and Westville Baptist, “Brighten up Kwadabeka” was a day aimed at painting, fixing, cleaning and repairing Sithokozile Secondary School, handing out food parcels and making home visits to the food parcel recipients of the community, and running a children’s programme [...]
Many of you may have seen our new slogan floating around the social media realms and wondered what the inspiration behind it is. "Move Beyond Charity" is our way of expressing what the core beliefs behind our organisation are. We believe that extreme poverty can end, that mindsets can be changed, and that love is a necessity. We believe that changing the world requires more than just a handout, more than just charity; it requires action.... it requires [...]
