TCOE – Trust for Community Outreach and Education was established by the late Steve Biko in 1983. TCOE is a national organisation that operates mainly in the rural areas of South Africa. TCOE has six affiliates and these regional operations have their own governance structures and regional support staff. Fundraising is done both by the national office and at the regional level.
The main work and experience of the organisation in the past ten years has been to stimulate the building of local organisations, local leadership and assist these associations to access land and productive assets to improve their livelihoods.
TCOE has successfully managed to:
(i) Build a national organisation and strong leadership;
(ii) Build well-informed leaders that can lead local initiatives and campaigns;
(iii) Grapple with the question of land, livelihoods and food sovereignty in a number of different ways;
(iv) Develop a campaign to access land for livelihoods;
(v) Make inroads into organizing rural women; and
(vi) Create strategic partnerships and alliances with organizations working with land and agrarian reform issues.
