Creating Thriving and Sustainable Communities, through and beyond Mining..

Lefa La Rona Trust is the umbrella trust facilitating the fulfillment of Alchemy’s community empowerment mandate.

Alchemy is a community empowerment and development scheme established in 2011 by Anglo American Platinum as part of it’s social responsibility to help achieve real-world development goals for more than 5,2 million people profoundly affected by inequality, poverty, and unemployment. The scheme is structured as Alchemy’s Community Development Trusts and a Non-Profit Company.

Positive & Transformative Impact with 5.2 Million People in 8 Communities

“Doing Better” instead of “Doing Good”

Development is a difficult and challenging task. The pressure from organisations to show results often leads them towards short-term projects which seem like they’ll make an impact but really don’t deeply affect those in need. Despite good intentions, community empowerment remains a tough challenge. The Lefa La Rona Trust believes that development is about more than just taking on one or two problems and solving them quickly. Development should be the pursuit of human betterment, not simply ‘doing good’. The Lefa La Rona Trust works with communities in order to understand their challenges so we can find solutions tailored specifically for them, then choosing initiatives with the biggest real-life impacts.

Our mandate

The Lefa La Rona Trust believes in real benefits to communities, not individuals

We believe that real change happens at community level rather than with individuals – which means we have to work hard on facilitating longer-term and sustained transformation within specific areas of concern. The Lefa La Rona Trust is proud to be an organisation that actively seeks to operate at a transformative level, and we remain committed to community empowerment and development.

Impact by Design

Impact by Design is a revolutionary approach that focuses on understanding the system as a whole and identifying key leverage points. Interventions are designed with user-centricity, constantly measured for feedback purposes in order to learn what works best from outcomes of different interventions created through this method. There is clear evidence that organisations and programmes that apply design and systems thinking are more successful in addressing difficult-to-solve social problems.

The Impact by Design Approach

Interactive Community Profiles

Having first-hand experiences of a problem is essential to understanding how to address it in the best way that benefits the community. The ICP is a resource that uses data to highlight areas of concern around promoting a positive trajectory and mitigating negative life events. The aim of the ICP is to provide a comprehensive overview of the factors that contribute to community wellbeing, and to help identify areas of intervention. The ICP provides data on a range of indicators, including economic, social, health, education, and environmental indicators. The ICP is a valuable resource for community organizations and individuals who are interested in promoting a positive trajectory for their community.

The identified systemic concerns are further explored as the following life course tracks:

The NEET track follows the up and downstream life events impacting the national concern of youth Not in Employment, Education or Training

The household, school and community violence* track follows negative life events that impact mental health and the associated challenges later

(*including gender-based violence)

The environment track follows environmental factors that impact health as well as increase individual, household, community and societal burdens

Meet the Development Structures

Lastest resources from the Knowledge Hub

Project Alchemy Lefa La Rona Trust Case Study featured in Tshikululu Community Trust Benchmarking Report 2022

The Tshikululu Community Trust Benchmarking Report 2022 is a national report, marking a significant milestone as it showcases the innovative Alchemy and LLR methodologies.

Tshikululu Community Trust Benchmarking Report 2022

This benchmarking study was produced by Tshikululu Social Investments, South Africa’s leading social investment fund manager and advisor, for Richards Bay Minerals (“RBM”). The aim of the study is to present examples of best practice in areas which can be used to strengthen the governance and the social development intent of the current RBM trusts.