Buy-Back Centres

Informal recyclers are among the hardest-working people in our communities. They collect, sort, and carry tonnes of material every week. And they have historically been rewarded with a fraction of what that material is worth: shortchanged at collection points, cut out of the formal economy, and made invisible by a system that depends entirely on their labour.

We are building dedicated buy-back centres in Orange Farm and across our communities of operation. A buy-back centre is a fixed, accessible collection point where informal recyclers bring their materials, are weighed fairly, and receive same-day payment at transparent prices. It removes the middlemen who extract value at recyclers' expense and replaces exploitation with a fair market. This is not charity. It is a structural correction.

Our flagship tool, the Eco Rover, is a purpose-built trolley designed to each recycler group's specific requirements: allowing waste pickers to carry more, travel further, and deliver directly to the centre. Nedbank Alexandra provides financial literacy training so recyclers can manage and grow what they earn. Wasteplan supplies PPE to keep every person in the programme safe. The infrastructure we are building is layered and deliberate.

Beyond individual livelihoods, buy-back centres address the landfill crisis at source. Every kilogram diverted through our centres is material that does not reach an overwhelmed dump site. Recyclers have always been doing essential environmental work. The buy-back centre finally ensures they are recognised and compensated for it.

Buy-back centres also serve a second purpose: building Vuka Skhokho's long-term self-sustainability. Each centre operates as a revenue-generating node in the formal recycling economy, reducing our dependence on donor funding and creating a model where the work sustains itself. Every centre we open creates direct employment drawn from the communities where we work: buy-back operators, logistics support, and programme staff. This is economic development that feeds directly back into the mission.

Soup Kitchen

You cannot run a counselling session with someone who hasn't eaten. You cannot teach a child who is hungry. Everything we do depends on this kitchen being open.

Every day, our soup kitchen provides nourishing meals to almost 200 vulnerable individuals: young children, the elderly, single mothers, households headed by children, teenagers who have dropped out of school, and waste-pickers who begin their days before dawn.

The kitchen is the heartbeat of Vuka Skhokho. It is where trust is built before any programme begins. It is where people who feel invisible become seen. It is, in the most literal sense, what keeps everything else going.

Our kitchen manager, Landelwa Magushana, runs this operation with extraordinary dedication. The Angel Network keeps us stocked with weekly groceries and monthly gas. Without them, this would not be possible.

Harm Reduction

Substance users often succumb to preventable conditions. No one should lose their life to HIV or TB. We are committed to making sure they don't.

Our harm reduction approach goes beyond handing out pamphlets. We stand as a genuine beacon of support: reintegrating users into ARV and TB treatment programmes, supplying toiletries, providing nourishing meals and warm clothing, and running wellness workshops that treat people as complete human beings.

We actively work to reunite individuals with estranged family members, creating a robust network of care around them: because recovery, if it comes, will need that network to survive.

We operate without judgment. We believe that reaching a person where they are: not where we wish they were: is the only honest starting point.