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 Seriti’s Work.Learn.Grow (WLG) program is an initiative that focuses on farming and agribusiness support for low-income communities, with emphasis on women and youth. Our program aims to empower small-scale producers by providing targeted training, capacity-building sessions, and knowledge-sharing initiatives. We believe that by fostering sustainable agricultural practices, we can help small-scale producers thrive in today’s competitive market landscape.

2.2 aRe Bapaleng (“Let’s Play” in Sesotho) is Seriti Institute’s flagship Early Childhood Development (ECD) programme. It is built on one powerful belief: the best way to improve a child’s development is to empower the people who care for them daily – parents, caregivers, teachers, and day mothers.

Since its launch in 2020, aRe Bapaleng has grown into a national parenting and ECD support programme, reaching more than 135,000 parents and caregivers across all nine provinces.

The programme integrates early learning and parenting support and is evolving to work directly through ECD centres and schools, strengthening the connection between families and early learning systems, and positioning aRe Bapaleng as a scalable, community-embedded ECD support model.

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/category/seriti-talks/