19/10/2021
Good day Friends, colleagues , Neighbors, brothers, sister and elders.. of The Senekal/ Matwabeng community...
This gives me a great pleasure and pride to announce this NGO herein constituted and registred with the Department of Social Development under reg 222-644 NPO.
Its mandate is to encourage, educate, assists the community to practice self-reliance.. Let me briefly explain the concept...Self reliance communities.
Self-reliance isn’t just about being able to provide for yourself with your own two hands. Your own self-reliance is intrinsically tied to the community and larger world around you. Learn how to promote self-reliance in your community and, in turn, support your own security and self-sufficiency by making conscious choices about where and how you spend your time, money and resources.
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Ah, self-reliance. It’s so, well, self-centred. Not in a bad, narcissistic sort of way. But in the sense that it’s often depicted as living alone in a cabin in the woods, off-grid and far away from society, living completely off the land and producing, hunting or foraging for everything you need, enjoying the complete freedom and solitude that such a lifestyle affords.
We rarely equate self-reliance with dependency on other people. After all, the definition of self-reliance means to rely wholly on your own skills and resources without needing help from anyone else to provide for your own basic needs. And while that might be a nice thought, the reality is that self-reliance looks nothing like that for most people. In fact, I’d venture to say that complete self-reliance is a myth for just about everyone.
While I love fantasizing about living alone in the woods, far from civilization, the reality is that it’s tough if not impossible to be 100% self-reliant without depending on any outside sources for anything else. Even Ma Ingalls had to go to town for flour and sugar and coffee that she couldn’t grow herself!
And even if you do manage to produce 100% of what you need to live all by yourself from your own land using nothing but your bare hands, you’re still affected by the health of the environment and the community around you, as well as by the politics, laws and regulations in your area. No one exists in a bubble, whether we like it or not.
The good news is, you can actually support your own self-reliance by supporting self-reliance in your own community. Because while we can’t do and produce everything we need by ourselves, when we support our local communities, we reduce our overall dependency on goods and resources that have to be shipped in from far away via large, faceless corporations who put profits over the health and well being of the people and communities they’re supposed to serve.
So today I want to touch on six different ways you can promote self-reliance in your own community and, in turn, support your own self-reliance.
Of course, there are more than six things you can do to get more involved in your own community. But these are good starting points. Still, I encourage you to add to the list in the comments section below so let me know what other suggestions you have!
1. Support your local farmers
2. Shop/buy local
3. Volunteer/Teach your skills
4. Get to know your neighbours
5. Join or create a community page
6. Vote/Be politically active and informed.
That is the mentality of we ought to adopt..
From the Chairperson's Desk..
