Layita's story
In 2014, a group of young, rural healthcare workers saw the need to optimise the services they provide so that patients travelling the long & costly journey to the hospital would be assisted efficiently & appropriately.
Soon, the Layita Foundation was established as an official public beneficiary entity. With other rural healthcare workers & their families funding most of the operations in the early years, Layita's programmes kept expanding: employing more local staff members, giving new life to old buildings & most importantly, impacting the lives of 1,000s of families through more efficient healthcare services, support to new mothers, as well as intentional childcare.
Our context
Layita operates around Madwaleni Hospital, a district hospital in the rural Eastern Cape serving a population of over 250,000 people. The Hospital provides essential healthcare as well as employment for a large & diverse group of people in an area with few other employment opportunities.
As a result of working so closely with the Hospital, we are acutely aware of the many health, lifestyle & social challenges - which are often intertwined - in a rural community such as this. It is from seeing severe malnutrition in young children, learning disabilities (or what is perceived as such) in older children, teenage pregnancies as well as the effort & cost to travel to healthcare facilities, that we are inspired to keep growing our programmes & so address the needs we witness.
Layita is the isiXhosa verb for 'lighting a candle'.
When praying about God’s vision for the foundation, we were reminded of the passage about the lamp on a stand (Luke 8:16-18). Our aim is to carry a source of light & hope, encouraging others to light their neighbour's candle too.
The main objective of the Layita Foundation is to provide support for the community living in the Mbhashe District in the Eastern Cape with a specific focus on developing quality healthcare, education and poverty relief.
We are aware of the unique challenges this rural community faces & are committed to being a vehicle to empower people to address these challenges. Over the years we have prioritised principles of consultation, empowerment & sustainability ensuring that, where possible, our impact is appropriate & effective.
Here are a couple of additional values we hold dear...
Good Stewards
We believe that we hold great responsibility in being good stewards of the finances donated
Partnerships
We believe there is an important role for non-profit organisations to play in supporting government initiatives
Quality Healthcare
& Education
We believe that everyone deserves to receive quality healthcare & education
People
We believe that people perform better when they are valued
Stakeholders
Prioritising involvement of stakeholders in the vision & execution of a project
Empowerment
We believe in empowering people so that they can find their own sustainable solutions