The Kuru Family of
Organisations

From Kuru Devlopment Trust (KDT) to KFO
The Kuru Development Trust was officially registered in 1989. Based in D'Kar, it was the first NGO in Botswana that was devoted to a strategy of affirmative action towards the San people. The organisation is fully owned and lead by the San through a Board of Trustees.

Kuru developed a strategy of empowering the San through a holistic approach to development. The initial input of Kuru was directed at finding economic projects as a point of entry with interest groups. It was soon found that a Training programme was needed to support the participating groups to cope with all the difficulties that are associated with hunter gatherer communities that enter into a capitalistic environment.

Development does not just happen in the air. It has a huge impact on the culture of the participants. In the struggle not to simply westernise people, development had to be translated into terms that were culturally sound. To encourage the participants to develop pride in their own cultural values, an art project as part of a larger cultural programme was developed. Today there is a San Cultural Centre in D'Kar that operates a Museum as well as a library. This programme presents a cultural festival every year that is becoming very well-known all over Botswana.

With the establishment of the Training Centre and the Cultural programme in 1999, it became clear that Kuru should make its facilities available to serve the wider San communities and not only D'Kar. The Board investigated the possibilities to expand as well as the needs in the San communities for development support. The pre-school and cultural programmes started to work in other settlements in 1990. By 1995 it was concluded that expansion in all areas was the right thing to do. A new constitution was developed to suit the ambitions of the organisation. By the beginning of 1999 Kuru had almost a hundred staff members and found itself working in nine communities in the Ghanzi District and in sixteen communities in Ngamiland. An innovative programme, Savings and Loans, was added to the departments of Extension, Training, Culture and Finance and Admin.