ABOUT US

Background

In April 1994 DOCKDA was established after Cape Town-based resource organisations and local
representatives from the Northern Cape Catholic Dioceses first met to set up a structure to enable
resources to be disbursed primarily to community projects in the Northern Cape, South Africa. From
a modest start DOCKDA has evolved a philosophy of working alongside rural community organisations
in as empowering and supportive way as possible.

We continue to strengthen communities and civil society through our Grantmaking, HIV & AIDS and
Lifelong Learning programmes.

Where do we work and what do we do?

There are relatively few NGOs based in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. We now focus
on Tswana speaking people whose communities were forcibly removed to vacant ground without
infrastructure during apartheid. These communities have experienced decades of deprivation and
poverty and low levels of service. We seek to promote links among such people within the Northern
Cape itself and with other provinces, so that they can share their mutual concerns and lessons to
enhance the community's problem-solving capacity.

DOCKDA's view is that community problems require comprehensive, integrated, sequential, and
sustained approaches that will improve systems in which civil society can grow and develop. Our
core work is to promote such approaches with our rural community partners.