Projects
KPF accepts proposals for community initiated, community driven projects that help secure and support the San peoples rights to health, education, land, language, and livelihood. Each year new projects are proposed and funded. Please read about the current initiatives of the San people.
Village playgroups
Melissa Heckler and the village playgroups team (Festus Soroab, mentor teacher for the Village School teachers),/Ai!ae Fridrick, /Ukxa /Ai!ae, //'Aokxa, Xoan//'an /Ai!ae, Festus, and #Oma Leon made three visits each in 2025 to the four new village playgroups. The four villages selected for this year were Baraka, Xamsa, Maxamisi, De#ua. There are now over 30 villages that have playgroups. The project goal remains to introduce through play- exploration basic literacy and math materials to village children to lessen anxiety in the youngest children and their parents as they transition to the Village and Tsumkwe schools.
IMAGE SOURCE: MELISSA HECKLER
The playgroups developed a Ju/'hoansi language click puzzle that features the four unique sounds in the language. Last year the team was able to take the puzzle to all four villages, and it was a big hit. Everyone in the village, young and old, is invited to play and explore with the youngest children
KHWE SMALL SHELTER COLLECTIVE
The Khwe community in Kavango East organized to provide simple, weather-resistant zinc housing structures for the community that has been very marginalized. The community worked together to build small family homes for the 17 households that are living at "Gumudame", meaning 'let the heart be at peace'. The families all worked together to assess and build therefore encouraging self-reliance and community togetherness.
Northern Cape, SA
Kalahari Arts and Heritage festival
Northern Cape, SA
IMAGE SOURCE: KALAHARI ARTS AND HERITAGE FESTIVAL. ACCESSED AT HTTPS://KAHF.CO.ZA/
The Kalahari Arts and Heritage Festival + ArtsMart is an annual festival aimed at empowering Khoi and San communities, particularly youth and women artists in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. KPF supported transport of the artists to the festival in 2025. The program entails the employment of Khoi and San artists who were trained in to create immersive and interactive art installations. The installations were showcased in galleries, museums, and festivals. In the same vein, Khoi and San theatre performers were employed to receive mentorship, working in teams to develop high quality productions that can travel both locally and internationally, earning income while showcasing the San culture and heritage.
The main event, a culmination of a two month program, happened January 24-25th, 2025 in Rietfontein, a San community, 280km west of Upington town. This community borders Namibia. San communities of Loubos, Andriesvale, Upington, Reitfontein, Groot Meir, Klein Meir, and Platfontein attended the event and participated in the activities.
IMAGE SOURCE: OMBA ARTS TRUST
SUPPORTING SAN ARTISTS
KPF supported Omba Arts with delivering operational support to the rural artisans in its fold and giving them an entry point into global markets, but also a conduit for delivering opportunities to further improve their sense of agency and well-being.
Omba Arts has their roots back to the early 1990s when founding director, Karin le Roux, started traveling to rural communities around Namibia, researching the development of the local craft sector and providing training, whilst planting the seeds of relationships and networks that still remain strong today. These early years laid the foundation for the independent Namibian support organization that was to become Omba Arts Trust in 2004.
Omba supports more than 450 artisans and artists form nine regions, most of whom are women and many of whom are San artists. Omba Arts has a fair trade ethos in which they unequivocally subscribe to the fair-trade practices of building trusting relationships, skills development, promoting resilience, and addressing environmental concerns.
Hai//om Community
Projects
Sewing Circle
The goal or the aim of the Sewing Circle is to fund these women with the needed materials, so that they will be able to make more profit by sewing more clothes at a more productive, increased, rate. The longer-term goal is to deposit 40% from after cost profit, for every item sold, into a community account towards future expansion of the sewing project towards: Mentoring and teaching the young ladies that have a passion in sewing in order to create and strengthen self-employment initiatives and sustainability; and building a suitable shelter for them to do their work and to teach their craft in a group setting, for currently the women always meet
at home and sew together as a group, sharing ideas and skills.
Decent Shelter
Community-based youth mobilizers with the Headman of Hai//om San communities in Oshivelo and Ondera resettlement farm, were conducting a wellbeing of our community households survey/research, and identified a crucial need for providing a decent shelter for 6(six) different households, 3 households in Oshivelo and another 3 in Ondera resettlement farm. Unfortunately, these households do
not have proper shelters during this rainy season and some households sharing a room with quite a number of people. Everyone knows that these are the ones who need help. We all agree. KPF provided support for the materials of the shelter and the community build them together.
Hope Kindergarten is a community-based school located in Oshivelo's Southern Location for the Hai//om San marginalized children, and has two Hai//om San teachers. The kindergarten was opened on the 1st of March 2021 in Oshivelo Southern Location, locally known as Hai//om Location. Currently the school is using a local church office as a classroom, rent free. Hope Kindergarten has been serving 30 Hai//om San learners by providing foundational education and care. In addition, it has also been sharing important traditional Hai//on San cultural and ancestral knowledge, to ensure that it is passed on, and sound traditional community-centered
values and respect for elders and what they have to teach. KPF provided materials for the relocation of the
kindergarten and the community rebuilt it.
=Khomani Community
Projects
Community Kitchen
The kitchen at Erin farm will open every day and be available as tourists pass by or stop into Erin Farm. (The farmhouse is right next to the main Erin Farm gates and is just across the
road from Barbara & Arie Raats's "living museum" activities, which KPF has supported in the past.) When fully running in the past, this restaurant - with traditional Kalahari meals cooked over open fires - was a great benefit to the community, as it was the primary =Khomani "attraction" open to the public and visible from the road.
KPF is also supporting the creation of an elders' meeting, sewing, and dinner series. Magdalena, a community leader would like to bring together the elder =Khomani San women to share clothes- and craft-making skills and also to show the community's appreciation for these elder women for their contributions to the community and, in some cases, their continuation of the N/uu language. KPF provided materials to restart the kitchen.
=Khomani Wendy House Tourism Project
Community members build the floor for the Wendy's and are busy finishing the process of the rest of the work. KPF helped to supply bricks, steel wire, and cement to finish the rest of the building. KPF also assisted in providing toilets and showers at the buildings, and Solar system which can give all buildings power and light.
Farm Restoration Project
KPF helped provide support for the San owned Erin Farm Game farm as well as major restoration projects to the =Khomani farms. The farm is a source of revenue for the community. KPF also supported the manager, to attend three trade fairs across South Africa to promote the Farm.
Hemp Farm
The aim of the Hemp Growing project is to economically uplift members of the !Xun and Khwe San community in Platfontein. The Project would also help curb the high rate of unemployment in the community. The project has the potential to create jobs for many people. The !Xun and Khwe San Community which would benefit from the hemp project is situated nearby Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa. Platfontein is home to more than twelve thousand !Xun and Khwe San people. The residents of Platfontein are originally from Angola and Namibia. KPF provided start up funds to the community for the farm.
!xun and khwe san
hemp growing project
tracking school: nyae nyae
Training for Master Trackers Rolf Dam, the n!orekxao of //Xa/oba village, a former teacher and Ju/'hoan activist from the Nyae Nyae community, is concerned about the fact that children from Nyae Nyae are not learning their traditional skills. Coming from a community that has a living museum and that often welcomes tourists, he can see the potential economic benefits that come from traditional skills. They also recognize the importance of the Master Tracker program, but worry that if the youth are not learning their skills, there will not be people that can go through that program.
Rolf and his team also readily articulate the cultural importance of traditional skills for general well-being of the youth. KPF is helping to support a tracking school that can affirm the value of traditional skills, and teach those skills, in the Nyae Nyae area. They also wish to eventually connect these schools with 'schools' for tourists that come
to learn about traditional San skills.
E KXA TSOSISI
('OUR LAND RIGHTS')
E Kxa Tsosisi's mission is to establish a robust foundation for youth activists from the San Community by providing comprehensive training, fostering community engagement, and leading advocacy efforts.
The vibrant group is committed to securing land and human rights while promoting sustainable resource management that benefits all community members. A database will be developed to track interactions with government entities, ensuring ongoing follow-up on raised issues. Through these coordinated efforts, the initiative aims to create a more informed and empowered community capable of advocating for their rights and sustainable resource management. KPF is providing support for the following objectives.
1. Educate Community Members about Their Rights Under Namibian Law
2. Support Sustainable Management of Natural Resources
3. Promote Fair and Equitable Land Distribution
4. Foster Collaboration Between the Two Conservancies
Healer's camp
Traditional healers are vital in San culture for spiritual, social, and physical well-being, addressing holistic health through trance dances, herbal medicine, and connecting with ancestors to cure ailments, mend social discord (like "star sickness"), and maintain community harmony, often serving as primary caregivers for illnesses and spiritual issues. KPF is helping to support a community driven effort to support elder healers in the training of younger healers in Botswana. Healers are able to come together and learn traditional skills from the few elder healers still practicing in the community. KPF is planning to extend that healing work to the Namibian side of the border in the near future.
KHAUDUM FILM PROJECT
This project seeks to document and reclaim the deep ancestral ties between the Ju/'hoansi people and the lands of Khaudum National Park. This initiative is not only a cultural preservation effort, but also a response to a painful colonial history.
In the 1970s, during the height of the South African Border War, many Ju/'hoansi were removed from their ancestral territories in Khaudum by the South African Defense Force (SADF). They were conscripted into military service, often as trackers and displaced from the landscapes that had sustained their communities for generations. This separation disconnected cultural continuity and disrupted their relationship with the land.
Today, the Ju/'hoansi enjoy no rights over the land. Through the film project, elders share stories about Khaudum, map sacred sites, and pass on ecological knowledge to younger generations. It is a powerful act of remembrance and restoration, reaffirming their identity and rights to the land.
ELAND SCHOOL: =KHOMANI SAN
In 2015 the school was granted a section of the =Khomani San communal land on which to establish a school. A comprehensive survey was completed with every household in
the community to make sure that everyone was on-board with the new school as well as ascertaining how the community would like the school to operate. The Community felt that school registration, with the Department of Education, would also help with recognition for the =Khomani San as a people with their own language and culture. The school was eventually registered in 2023.
KPF helped to support the after school homework program that offers Learners from Grades 3-7 (aged 8 14) the opportunity to get help with their studies and to do their homework in a controlled safe environment. Many learners in this community do not have a table or electricity at home. The teachers give lessons where needed, answer individual questions and check homework. The program provides sandwiches and a fortified milk drink to the learners before they settle to their studies as some of the learners live beyond walking distance from Eland School, transport to these students is also provided.
TJU IHO BOOK
PROJECT AND COBBLERATION CONFERENCE
KPF helped to support the publication and launch of Tju|Ho - "thoughtful ways of making and walking" - Making of the bilingual publication (English and Ju'|Hoan) with the editing team in Tsumkwe.
This book is a deep dive into stories of the eland, on the significance of re-creating the hunting
sandal and envisioning how to bring the project straight into the future. Future Footwear Foundation believe it is necessary to produce shoes in a way that respect body and planet, while also respecting the rights of those who produce them, and rewarding the Indigenous communities for the expertise and skills they provide.
The San-Dal is a minimal, natural leather sandal handmade by the Ju'/hoansi San people of the Kalahari Desert. Working in partnership with Vivo Barefoot(@vivobarefoot) and guided by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they established a long-term collaboration with the Ju'/hoansi San people, to support the regeneration of a lost craft and preserve ancient (barefoot) wisdom. The launch was at !Khwa Ttu in May 2025 where several Ju/'hoansi speakers attended.
Literacy Project: Ju/'hoan Transcription Group
Six original native- speaker participants took part in the Ju|'hoan Transcription Group in 2002 in Tsumkwe, Namibia, formed by US anthropologist Megan Biesele and a student assistant, Catherine Collett. Funded by academic grants and the US nonprofit Kalahari Peoples Fund, the JTG trained the native Ju|'hoan speakers in computer literacy and the use of the state-of-the-art transcription software ELAN to transform sound recordings of verbal materials in the Ju|'hoan language to written form. To do so, they used a recently created, professional linguistic orthography developed under the auspices of the Kalahari Peoples Fund and the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia.
Over the quarter-century since its founding, JTG members have produced work ranging from transcriptions and English translations of folklore, songs, and political speeches for community archives and a major collection of Ju|'hoan verbal material now in Open Access in ELAR, the Endangered Languages Archive now located in Berlin; ethnographic interviews by many anthropologists; sound tracks of several documentaries on the Ju|'hoan people and their knowledge of the Kalahari environment; and sections of the national curriculum of Namibia following its Independence.
JtG members have co-authored, contributed to, or assisted on a number of published books, including a Ju|'hoan Children's Dictionary, illustrated botanical learning materials and books, and an ethnographic account of the eland-hide sandal, a highly important part of material culture from the Ju|'hoan hunting-and-gathering heritage. The Ju|'hoan Transcription Group is considered a valuable example of one of the first community-based literacy and heritage documentation projects in the world. Its original membership, now expanding, post-covid, with training to younger students, is in high demand for transcription and translation work by international scholars, authors, and educators.
Village Schools Project
KPF was the principal founder of the well-known Nyae Nyae Village Schools Project in Namibia. This project provides for the Ju/'hoan San a genuinely alternative challenge to the authoritative national school system they had tried and refused. Twenty years ago, KPF provided expertise in Ju/'hoansi, a click language of the Kalahari, and knowledge of the Ju/'hoan Bushmen (San) communities to respond to these people's request for a literate form of their language and appropriate schooling to go with it. At present, two subsequent classes of local teachers have been trained to teach the Ju/'hoan language to students in grades 1-4. This project provides a bridge to English while teaching and respecting traditional knowledge, and has been a pilot for other such projects in Africa.
Nyae Nyae Plant Book
Although Indigenous Peoples comprise only 5% of the world’s population, they safeguard 80% of the planet’s biodiversity. 80%! A group of artists in the Nyae Nyae of Namibia are creating an illustrated book of indigenous plants. Hand drawn and researched. The authors have been collaborating and not cataloguing the utility and attributes of each plant. It is wildly beautiful and wildly important. The book should be available for purchase in 2024.
Pictured is the Mangetti Tree.
Hai//om Cultural Heritage
KPF respects and honors Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression. The Oshivelo Hai//om cultural heritage group were awarded the honor of Best Cultural Group in the Region for 2022. They perform in the region, continuing a long tradition of dance, song, and healing. KPF supported a small grant for new materials, instruments, and technology.
=Khomani Community Projects
Many indigenous communities walk a tightrope of economic security. The =Khomani San community in SA have organized several projects:
The community is building small tourist houses to support a community based tourism project that generates money and preserves tradition.
A youth soccer league was formed as a way to help them connect with other Kalahari communities, increase the youth/elder collaboration on the Khomani farms, and give young people a positive activity. Equipment, clothing, and travel costs for the current season was supported through KPF and a highlight was the Easter Soccer Tournament.
Tju|ho - thoughtful ways of making and walking.
Tju|ho is a publication on thoughtful design,
exploring how place and community shape
regenerative ways of making and walking. It
centres on the re-creation of the traditional San
hunting sandal N!ang N|osi in Nhoma, Namibia,
and its true owner, the Eland.
A project in the making since 2021, shaped through deep
collaboration with the Ju|’hoansi communities of Nhoma and Tsumkwe. Tju|ho exemplifies a multi-method approach to
knowledge integrating biomechanical quantitative data with
qualitative, experiential, and embodied knowledge. This approach recognizes that knowledge is not only acquired through
verbal transmission but also through movement, practice, and sensory engagement—with our ears, but also with our hands and feet. Tju|ho envisions a living network— one that connects expertise, and strengthens craft traditions worldwide. After all, Tju|ho means
village.
The publication was pre-launched at !Khwa ttu –
San Heritage Centre in May 2025, and will be
officially launched in collaboration with the
Global Footwear Future Coalition (GFFC) in
London, on 9 October 2025.
