In today’s world it’s easy to look forward and try and think about innovation through a futuristic lens. The risk with such an approach is you can forget everything and everyone that has come before you.
Team Amani

Our approach focuses on 3 pillars:

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A structured conversation with a Community on what freedom and dignity means for them

This conversation is based on various sociological theories but seeks to ascertain what freedom and dignity means at different levels (individual, family, community and our country). The pillars we use to understand what it means to be a free South African is based on the Freedom Charter. Although the Freedom Charter is over 65 years old it was created after a long process of consultation over the type of South Africa people wanted to see, after the ending of apartheid. Importantly it dared to speak on behalf of all the “people of South Africa” and formed the basis of our Constitution. We believe it sets out the foundational elements for defining what it means to be a free South African.

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Support to community owned enterprises through the Amani Accelerator

Once a community has defined what it means for them to be free and afforded dignity, we support them to develop local solutions to the problems they must live with. These solutions focus on the development of community owned enterprises, and we use a human centered design process, ensuring that the community is at the forefront of designing, owning and operating a solution that works for them. The Amani Accelerator also employs social extraprenuership; we ensure that we are bringing together ideas, people and resources by working across or beyond organisational boundaries to create social impact. This means working with government, private sector and civil society to develop solutions.

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Securing Investment

Our initial research indicated that for most communities across the country the challenge is less about the ideas to solve their problems but more about helping them move from ideation to implementation. This is what fundamentally makes us different as Amani. Our services to communities that want to work with us is offered free of charge but in the process of securing recourses, we will either take equity with our community partner or charge a fee for our services in the event of a community not wishing to have external shareholders. By Amani retaining a business interest in these projects, we ensure that the communities continue as our partners and we can use surplus generated to support other communities across the country. We see the communities we work with as our partners and our success hinges on their success.

We need something different

The old addage is that numbers don't lie. Sadly millions of South Africans are being left behind. We need social innovation to turn the tide and create a South Africa where we bring as many South African along on the journey.

Our approach helps South African communities take control of their own future by helping them develop enterprises to tackle the challenges they face.

20%
Youth Unemployment rate
5+%
Going to bed hungry
1+%
Living in poverty
1
Years of freedom
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We create new business models through Social Innovation

Social innovation is a broad range of organizational and inter organizational activity that is ostensibly designed to address the most deep-rooted ‘problems’ of society, such as poverty, inequality and environmental degradation.

We believe that through social innovation and by engaging multiple stakeholders and placing communities at the forefront of the innovation we can make a difference in dealing withe our societal challenges.

Project Gallery

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