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Our principles
The Shaster Foundation is a non-profit, volunteer organisation staffed by people who care passionately about South Africa, her people, fighting poverty, preserving traditional culture, protecting the environment, and instilling respect for all life.
We work using the principles of Permaculture:
- conserving resources;
- using volunteers to import skills;
- eliminating waste;
- respecting people and the planet;
- sharing information;
- sharing any surplus freely; and
- using non-polluting natural energy systems wherever possible
We are dedicated to empowering previously disadvantaged individuals in generating unlimited possibilities for themselves and their communities and making a difference in the lives of all South Africans.
We have profound respect for people and their inherent talents, our land and for life itself. Our charitable programmes are non-aligned politically and religiously and are open to volunteers from all countries.
Our holistic project plan integrates every element for a flourishing community into a dynamic whole. This provides limitless opportunities for growth and development in individuals, relationships, families, communities, business institutions and society as a whole.
Well-being, integrity, accountability, sustainability and self-expression are the tenets upon which we stand.
Our Objectives
Using these principles our aim is to:
- Improve the health and well-being of impoverished communities in a sustainable way Enable communities to grow food and create shelter for all
- Stimulate economic development and much needed job creation
- Revive a sense of pride in traditional and indigenous culture Encourage self-sufficiency and conservation of natural resources
- Encourage volunteers to contribute their skills to the community
- Protect the environment
- Eliminate waste
- Create a world that works for everyone – no one is left out
Where the Shaster Foundation works
Permaculture Education in rural South Africa
The Shaster Foundation is a registered and tax exempt public benefit organisation whose primary initiative is a new Permaculture Education Project at the Samuel Johnson School, a rural school located in Zastron (in the Free State, near the border of Lesotho).
This school is barely coping under heavy pupil numbers which have soared from 150 in 2008 to well over 1,000 in 2010. The staff care deeply about giving their students the brightest futures they can. Despite their frequent fundraising from the already impoverished community, classrooms are overcrowded, facilities are buckling under the numbers and the school principal was at a loss as to how she could continue to give these children the education and care they deserve.
We’ve taken the first steps to building a sustainable future for this school, and it includes installing dry composting toilets, an irrigation system and vegetable beds, providing employment, obtaining funding for new buildings, transport and other essential needs the school has.
Past Projects: Ecovillage in Cape Town
Through our work at the Indlovu Project, we carried out community development work in the Monwabisi Park informal settlement in South Africa.
The Indlovu Project is in an informal settlement (squatter camp), in Monwabisi Park, Khayelitsha on the outskirts of Cape Town. In the community surrounding the project unemployment is high, teenage girls fall pregnant in order to access the small monthly government child support, lack of sanitation results in children under 5 dying from diarrhoea and TB and HIV/Aids are rife. The cycle of poverty can only be broken by giving the people of this squatter camp hope through education and employment.
We successfully created an developed an Ecovillage which incorporated a youth centre, laundry, conference centre, guest house, soup kitchen, permaculture vegetable gardens, health clinic, care centre for the elderly, music and cultural workshops, and education for women. Once this was established, we handed the project over to the local council and the community in 2010.