Keiskamma Trust

About us

The Keiskamma Trust began in 2002 as the Keiskamma Art Project, created by doctor and artist, Carol Hofmeyr, in response to the extreme poverty and high percentage of HIV/AIDS affected families in the area. The Keiskamma Art Project later became the Keiskamma Trust, a non-profit organization, inclusive of an Art, Health and Education Programme. In 2006 Helen Vosloo, one of the country´s foremost classical musicians, founded the Keiskamma Music Academy as the fourth Trust programme.
The non-profit organization Keiskamma Trust is located in Hamburg, a village in a rural setting in the Eastern Cape.
The Keiskamma Trust promotes health and hope through art, music, HIV/AIDS treatment, poverty alleviation projects and education initiatives in the village of Hamburg and its surroundings in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Vision
A healthy community in all respects.

Mission
Our mission at Keiskamma Trust is to foster hope and offer support for the most vulnerable. We strive to address the challenges of widespread poverty and disease through holistic, creative and practical programmes and partnerships

Programmes and projects:
• The Keiskamma Health Program:. This programme consists of the Keiskamma health team, which includes a passionate group of community health workers who provide healthcare in 47 remote villages of the Eastern Cape. The programme aims to address the social determinants of disease through its comprehensive healthcare programme with a strong focus on primary healthcare and reducing the burden of preventable diseases. The programme is a health systems strengthening initiative and activities are delivered through partnerships with the local government clinics, and a highly active team of community health workers who provide education, treatment support and health promotion services to patients in their homes. Regular community awareness campaigns addressing priority areas identified by the community are held.
• The Keiskamma Art Project: This community initiative provides many people from Hamburg and neighbouring villages with the skills, materials and training to create beautiful artworks. In so doing, people grow respect for themselves and generate vital incomes in an area of limited employment opportunities. The Keiskamma Art Project´s most famous artworks to date are the Keiskamma Altarpiece and the Keiskamma Tapestry. Both large artworks carry the message of hope in the fight against HIV/AIDS to audiences around the world. The Art Project now has five Art Studios specialising in beading, felt-making, embroideries, ceramics and printmaking.
• The Keiskamma Education and Development Programme: This programme has three projects. The orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) project reaches out to over 530 children each day in several villages, offering after-school care and remedial education to the most vulnerable, as well as daily meals. The Intlantsi Creative Development Programme implemented through the three OVC centres, brings the arts and education work the Trust does together in an effort to encourage children to develop their individual abilities and self-esteem. Young unemployed volunteers are being trained as facilitators of therapeutic arts activities (dance / movement, visual art, music, drama, creative writing and puppetry) while building these activities into the centres existing programmes for the children. The Vulindlela Centre provides information technology training, career guidance, connection with further education, training and employment opportunities, academic support and numerous life-skills clubs and activities for high school learners, dropouts and recent school leavers.
• The Music Academy: The vision of the Music Academy is to uplift the quality of life of vulnerable rural children of Hamburg and surrounding areas by creating opportunities through a musical education.

Thabang Meslane is the Director of the Keiskamma Trust.

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.