“My colleague Diane and I had an extraordinary time at the #JourneyToJazz festival in Prince Albert. Well done to PACT, it’s founder Ingrid Wolfaardt, Brenda Sisane the fantastic young leaders of PACT, Prince Albert village and all collaborators. The music!”
Professor Thuli Madonsela, PACT Patron
WELCOME TO OUR COMMUNITY
The Prince Albert Community Trust (PACT) is committed to serving as a change agent by making a lasting impact through empowering and enabling the youth of the greater area it serves, while fighting to transform the current status quo of inequality still so deeply embedded in our society.
Collaboration, faith, hope and love – these are the building blocks that form our foundation of positive, transformational community engagement. By partnering with community champions, and adopting innovative inclusive approaches and a solution-based mindset, PACT aims to build trust and bridges within the community.
A multipronged organisation – which sees a core team on the ground working together with our office in Paarl, the community and the trustees – PACT considers and evaluates every initiative through the lens of how it can create opportunity, build social cohesion and answer real needs.
PACT is a non-profit and public benefit organisation, registered as a trust. We are non-partisan, non-political and non-denominational, and respect all creeds and cultures. PACT acts as an umbrella body and bona fide charity, channelling donations towards the welfare of the disadvantaged community of Prince Albert and the greater municipal area of Klaarstroom, Seekoeigat and Leeu-Gamka.
We have three focus areas where we strategically place our interventions and investment – education, health and well-being, and youth and skills development. We believe that these are the areas where we can have the biggest impact and drive transformation.
“Prince Albert will never be the same. Hope revived in a time where there seemed to be no hope. Prince Albert Community Trust played a massive role in this transformation. The youth became active, and a sense of community prevailed. PACT sparked what they aspire to, which is to grow a healthy, caring and safe community together. Skills development has become their tool in creating the medium for this to be done. They know how to feed Prince Albert and attend to people’s needs in so many ways, from entertainment to education. PACT has given the community a voice.” – Naaim Briesies, Pact Center and Regional Leader
CHANGE AGENT TEAM
PACT believes that education, skills development, and cultural engagement are the avenues that will lead the youth to step out and up into the world. But in order to pursue their dreams, and reach their potential, the community’s children and young adults’ physical, emotional and social wellbeing must also be considered and cared for.
As such, PACT projects are holistically conceived and are shaped and executed to be life affirming to their beneficiaries. PACT and its partners feel an urgent need to bring about social transformation, and this lies at the heart of every programme. What these hope to instill in their participants is multifold – from the establishment of personal boundaries, to the identification of purpose and the building of a strong ethical framework.
PACT will fund projects aimed towards empowerment that build social cohesion, develop skills amongst the youth and create opportunities, while celebrating the local community and culture in an inclusive way. It won’t fund an initiative that is affiliated with a political party, aligned with any specific church denomination, or that focuses on a specific individual or group (unless this offers direct benefit to the community).