Organisational activities and institutional experience
Indigo development & change has been involved with a range of activities across a spectrum of projects both locally and internationally. The organisation’s strength lies in its ability to facilitate local action amongst members of rural communities with the ultimate focus on empowerment of marginalised groups and simultaneous promotion of social and environmental justice. All senior staff members of Indigo development & change hold post-graduate university degrees in the social and natural sciences, and are thus suitably skilled to make meaningful input on local basic training and skills development.

Locally, members of Indigo have offered various training and facilitation inputs to local community based organisations and conservation oriented businesses. These include basic training in bookkeeping, costing and pricing, inputs on small-business development, and training in basic computer literacy.

Apart from its local contributions in the Suid Bokkeveld and Nieuwoudtville communities in the Northern Cape and Western Cape, Indigo has operated more broadly in these provinces, as well as abroad. Regional activities include rural development work with small-scale farmers in Zambia and Lesotho. The organisation continues to establish and maintain national and international networks with the aim to inform and implement appropriate policies where they are useful to fulfilling Indigo’s mandate.

With its Head Office based in Nieuwoudtville, the organisation remains sensitive to the issues and dynamics of the communities in which it operates. At the same time, no projects are developed or implemented without the committed participation of the project target group. With emphasis on methodologies of participatory processes, Indigo’s operations are informed by the requests and needs of local community members who earn their livelihoods from the land they work and live on. Indigo seeks to respond to these needs in appropriate ways that speak to the mission and vision of the organisation.

Indigo Board
Indigo development & change is a registered non profit organisation (section 21 company as under South African legislation) and goverened by a board of four directors.

Board members are: Bettina Koelle (Chair), Gabriela Demergasso (Vice Chair), Eugene Marinus (Treasurer), Rhoda Malgas (Secretary).

Capacity Development & learning in our organisation

In keeping with its commitment to develop the capacity of local residents from the communities in which it works, Indigo is committed to provide capacity development opprtunities to junior staff and an opportunity for exposure to conservation oriented careers.

Indigo also offers internship positions to interested individuals wanting to make a contribution in the various fields we work in.

Indigo staff

Bettina Koelle (Director)
Bettina holds a Master's Degree in Geography, Cartography and Anthropology of the Free University of Berlin. She has been working in development for the past 15 years, focussing in transdisciplinary research and participatory methods. She is involved in climate change adaptation working with rural communities, training, social research, Participatory GIS and organisational development.
bettina@indigo-dc.org

Estholene Moses (Financial administration and project officer)
Estholene is the financial administrator and project officer for our business and biodiversity programme. She has been part of the CREW group in Nieuwoudtville as a Biodiversity Facilitator and has run various business training and computer training courses.
estholene@indigo-dc.org

Donna Kotze (BIOTA paraecologist and project officer)
Donna currently works as a para-ecologist and project officer with Indigo. Donna is partly working on the Nieuwoudtville Biodiversity Observatory of BIOTA / SANBI doing amongst other monitoring work also a scopion census. Her other project activities include working with GPS/ GIS, botanical surveys and exploring methods of controlling alien grasses in the Nieuwoudtville Dolerite Renosterveld.
donna@indigo-dc.org

Shannon Parring  (project officer)

Shannon works as a project officer in the climate change adaptation project. She is responsible for community liaison, documentation and knowlegde management. She has been working in the PGIS context with GPS and is currently a GIS apprentice.
shannon@indigo-dc.org