The year 2011 marks the 30th birthday of the Rhodes Centre for Social Development (CSD). The CSD will host several events aimed at highlighting the impact their activities have had on the local community, including a thanksgiving service dedicated to the memory of Dr Thelma Henderson, the founder of the Centre.
In 1981 in a small cottage on Somerset Street, a woman with an immense social conscience and an enormous talent for fundraising started the Centre for Social Development, a self-funded institute of Rhodes University. The late Dr Henderson committed so much of herself to alleviating economic and social deprivation in the Grahamstown Community. Her strong values are still embedded in all of the CSD’s activities today.
When the Centre was started, Rhodes University was in a financial crisis and unable to assist Dr Henderson, the wife of the then Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes, Dr Derek Henderson. This did not deter her, because the need was great and she went on to successfully mobilise funds from various trusts, foundations and individuals.
When staff moved into the cottage there was no furniture and space was at a premium. However Dr Henderson’s enthusiasm and great spirit inspired them and ultimately they managed to secure their own funds to acquire furniture, office equipment and pay salaries.
She applied her expertise in advancing social development and was also responsible for developing various community organisations in Grahamstown. One of these organisations is GADRA Education. She placed great importance on providing access and opportunities for the economic and social advancement of underprivileged South Africans. She often said her aims “were to empower people and communities to obtain skills to run their own projects, take decisions and be in control of their own lives”.
A fundamental part of the initial CSD programmes was the home-based care group system, run by elderly women in their homes. CSD provided hands-on training for these women by using pre-school children in practical demonstrations. However, these home-based care groups were later phased out and brought about large numbers of children in desperate need of formal pre-school education.
Preschools became a more practical option and could also accommodate more children. CSD then embarked on establishing several preschools both in Grahamstown as well as on farms in Bedford, Fort Beaufort, Bathurst, Alexandria, Kenton-on-Sea, Port Alfred and the Fish River Area. The farmers were approached to identify a place on their farms and in the end 75 farm schools were established.
It is from these beginnings that CSD’s current model of a Social Development Approach to ECD has evolved, which has proved itself to be a highly effective tool in improving the quality of education that our young children receive. This approach is based on a deep understanding of children’s development and learning from birth and the role of the family, community, school, teachers and the environment in this whole process.
During the last few years, the centre has developed and presented Community Development Practice (CDP) courses that train CDP facilitators to work alongside ECD practitioners to reach out into the community from the base of the pre-school. They assist in identifying vulnerable families and cases of abuse or neglect. They also facilitate family literacy programmes and community food gardens, etc.
An important role that the CDP’s play is to establish and monitor Self Help Groups (SHG). The SHG approach has grown out of the study and application of development concepts at community level and is founded on rights-based principles that facilitate an atmosphere wherein individuals and communities can realise their potential and work towards their own development. Part of this development is to build economic, psychological and social capacity in the most vulnerable families, to break down the isolation and barriers created by poverty and in so doing, to free people to take responsibility for other issues, such as the critical development of young children.
As CSD celebrates their 30th birthday this year, they are still faced with many of the same challenges that confronted them when they started in 1981. Their current office space in Prince Alfred Street, to which they moved in 2008, is still not quite big enough for the full staff compliment of 13 people. Their training room, “Emfundweni”, meaning a place to learn, was built by CSD with funding received partly from Rhodes and also from various private donors.
Emfundweni is fully booked for the year and there are still long waiting lists of people wanting to enrol for the various CSD courses. However the legacy left by Dr Henderson, affectionately known by those who worked with her as No-Ntsapho, continues to inspire the staff to look beyond these challenges and focus on serving the community with compassion.