Sinethemba Agricultural and Projects Co-op located in Olievenhoutbosch, founded and registered in 2011 by Mandlenkosi Mahlangu on seeing the level of unemployment in community. The community has an increasing number of youth that have resorted to prostitution, alcohol and drug abuse as well as a greater statistic of single mothers and child headed households, orphans and uncared for, sick elderlies.
The objective for Sinethemba Agricultural is to get as much employment as possible for the community by involving the youth, women and the disabled through building embowing projects for the community. The project is sustained by four hectares of organic vegetables and free range poultry, food security and production. Through this the co-operative has raised funds by selling vegetables to locals, this in turn has covered a few basics for the staff and volunteers. There was no funding given to the project and the profit was too little to reach the objective of creating job opportunities.
Forest Hill City Shopping Centre is only a stone throw away from Olievenhoutbosch. This is the closest underprivileged community to the mall, our involvement with this community will not only meet our CSI objectives of making a difference in communities but will also be an investment with our future shoppers. The Forest Hill City and Billion Group team were more than willing to assist in helping and uplifting the community by contributing their time and efforts to the project, the staff helped mulch the gardens and donated gardening tools to the co-operative.
It gave us a better understanding of why it is so important to help and teach those around us the value of humanity of the planet we live on.