The Mineworkers Development Agency (MDA) assists ex-mineworkers, their families and communities to recognise their socio-economic potential. There is a huge need in these communities, as many rely on a single income earner. Over 500,000 jobs have been lost in the sector since the late 1980s placing tremendous pressure on retrenched workers, their families and the communities in which they live.

MDA has implemented Food Garden and Wool Growers Projects where they support people to set up food gardens assisting them with training, seeds, home visits for follow-up support and on-sight consultancy from experts in the field. The same goes for Wool Growers; people are educated and supported to buy sheep, keep them and harvest and sell the wool. They are helped with recognising and treating sheep diseases, augment wool quality and any practical advise possible from true specialists in the field.

In Soweto Care System, MDA has captured all their beneficiaries in the respective programs. Training attendance is kept in the system allowing for overall and beneficiary-specific analysis. The field visits are captured as well with all relevant details: status of the food garden, quantities harvested, condition of the sheep, quantities and qualities of wool harvested, any changes in size and produce of the project. With this wealth of information captured, MDA has instant reports at their fingertips to properly manage the project; to see progress or lack thereof and insight as to where changes must be made.

In 2016 MDA was our first user of the mobile Soweto Care System application. Their field workers now capture visits at the site itself adding pictures of the food garden or cattle and locking in GPS coordinates. This has eased the task of data capturers, gives the field workers a better handle on their administration and has done away with the backlog in capturing.