The Trust was established inter alia as the fundraising vehicle for both the construction of the Eco‑Centre as well as its ongoing operational costs. It has been approved by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) as a Public Benefit Organisation enabling it to issue Section 18A certificates to all donors and sponsors.
The Trust runs a number of environmental education programmes out of its newly constructed multi-functional Eco-Centre. Intaka Island is rapidly becoming known as an exciting environmental education destination with 13 321 visitors passing through the Eco-Centre during the initial start up year of operation (2011) which included 77 school groups from 65 different schools.
The construction of the Intaka Island Eco-Centre started in early 2010 and obtained widespread stakeholder support, from the CCPOA Board of Directors, Century City based corporates, including the Rabie Property Group, and the broader community. The construction costs of this modern, energy conscious, enviro-friendly green educational building was funded by donations of financial contributions, building materials and professionals time from environmentally conscious corporates and individuals. The Eco-Centre was completed in October 2010 and includes an assembly area, an educational activity room, reception, ablution and catering facilities, as well as an outdoor sustainable living classroom.
A team of 9 staff have been employed to run the Eco-Centre and its related programmes and activities. The team comprises an Eco-Centre Co-ordinator, a receptionist, three field rangers, a cleaner, two boat skippers and a rope hand. It will be necessary to grow this team as the take-up of the existing programmes increases and the programme offering expands.
The establishment of the team has been an exciting opportunity to create jobs, empower and upskill people. For example, two of our three field rangers were previously security guards responsible for monitoring the entrance to the Intaka Island Nature Reserve. They displayed an interest in the environment and were offered employment as field rangers. They have successfully completed a number of training courses which has qualified them as guides and empowered them to conduct tours of the Eco-Centre and Intaka Island. They are also fully competent to run all the primary have successfully completed a number of training courses which has
qualified them as guides and empowered them to conduct tours of the Eco-Centre and Intaka Island. They are also fully competent to run all the primary school educational programmes which includes bird and plant identification, water quality experiments, energy self sufficiency and natural resource recycling demonstrations, etc.
A further example is the employment, empowerment and upskilling of two general labourers who have undergone training and obtained their boat skippers licences. They are now fully competent to skipper our two launch boats which take visitors on a tour of the 8km’s of canals around Intaka Island. They also provide commentary during the boat ride sharing relevant information pertaining to both the surrounding natural and urban environments. A third labourer has been employed as a rope hand on the boats and will be undergoing training for his skippers licence during the course of the year.