Seriti is a development facilitation agency that assists communities and social partners reach their goals by delivering innovative, sustainable, and comprehensive solutions to enhance socioeconomic impact. Seriti's work activities cover capacitation of primary caregivers of children (0-8), support for agroecological food gardening to improve food security, social partnering, capacity building for NPOs, and civil society discussions.

Seriti is a non-profit company (NPO Registration: 078-483-NPO), registered as a public benefit organisation (PBO Reference: 930042754), governed by a board of distinguished professionals and led by black women. We are Level 1 BBBEE compliant. As a social enterprise, our revenue derives from fees-for-service from programmes, as well as from consulting assignments. As an NPC, surplus funds are ploughed back into community development initiatives.

Seriti's Thematic Areas

1. Seriti PARTNER

Seriti PARTNER provides civil society organisations (CSOs), including community-based NPOs, with the necessary technical support to strengthen their contributions to the communities they work with and serve, using a hybrid approach to best-practice tools. This programme started in 2019 and has thus far supported and works with over 50 organisations. Seriti PARTNER uses a holistic response to address the critical gap that exists in the community development ecosystem, around the sustainability and capacity of CSOs to help them properly manage their projects and programmes. This systemically improves how CSOs function and engage with one another and provides a network through which CSOs speak with one voice on issues of importance.

2. Programme/Project Management and Implementation

Project management services are informed by adaptive approaches. Interventions are framed with specific results, performance targets and budgets, and links to the local development ecosystem and social partners.

2.1 The Work.Learn.Grow initiative is a community farming and agribusiness initiative for low-income communities, targeting women and youth beneficiaries. It provides inputs and agroecology training through experience-based learning in community agriculture, designed to strengthen local participation and skills while establishing food gardens. Household and communal food gardens enhance access to safe and nutritious food through their own production and support for local markets. The main purpose is to bring together the diverse range of stakeholders involved at the district level and identify key challenges, opportunities and priorities faced in recalibrating localised food systems to increase active participation within the local food economy by small-scale farmers and enterprises. – https://seriti.org.za/programmes/work-learn-grow/

Seriti Institute’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) Programme aRe Bapaleng, in partnership with Standard Bank SA, provides parents and primary caregivers with the content, skills, tools, and resources that will ensure they understand and respond to the critical role they play in stimulating their children to advance in development.  Key achievements from 2020 are available online: https://seriti.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Seriti-aRe-Bapaleng-2020-Report.pdf

The C-19 Community Response links into the Seriti PARTNER and Work. Learn. Grow. programmes.  It is rooted in the agency of communities themselves and seeks to mobilise them to respond effectively to the COVID-19 crisis in a way that offers pathways to longer-lasting forms of relief. Built into the design of the response is a deep concern about not further creating dependency but rather strengthening local people to be equipped to help themselves as much as possible. Our overarching strategy is to work with vulnerable communities to help them move from needing food and other emergency relief to be more resilient to shocks, such as the current food crisis, through support for growing their own food and eventually being involved in related activities that help generate an income for example selling excess produce and seedlings. 

3. Facilitated Learning Events

As a community development facilitation agency with core competence in education and training, participatory learning techniques and community mapping methodologies used in workshops, webinars, and partner offerings, reinforce our capacity-building efforts and commitment to blended learning opportunities. Seriti is accredited with the ETDP SETA and AgriSETA and offers several technical and vocational courses. It is also accredited with the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) to offer occupational qualifications for Community Development Workers and Community Development Practitioners.

4. Civic Driven Change and Accountability

Advocacy efforts in the community development space seek to establish the facts on the ground and encourage discussion for policy shifts policy. The Seriti TALKS brings participants from diverse communities of practice together to draw on synergies and create a greater mutual understanding among civil society organisations to better equip them to act as a collective and align intervention strategies. View episodes online: https://seriti.org.za/programmes/seriti-talks/