Verneukpan Sopkombuis

Why did Lottoland choose Verneukpan Sopkombuis as a project to support?

Swartkop is a very small, rural and forgotten community in the Northern Cape near the famous Verneukpan. The nearest town is Brandvlei.  There live about 130 people.  They are mostly farm workers with families and old age people who worked on farms.  Verneukpan Sopkombuis is a registered NPO which operates since 2008.  We feed the whole community five days per week and strive to look after the needs of the people, especially our old age people and the children.   Up till very recent we didn’t have any infrastructure, we operate from a very small room attached to the local shop, but our dream of a Community Centre for Swartkop is realizing.  Our main goal will always be to feed the community - a well fed person is happy and can make a positive contribution to society -  but we also want to give the people much more.  We want to give them a crèche -  children in Swartkop go to school without any preschool education, we want them to have a proper library, we want them to have a room where they can see the sister or doctor in private and we want them to have a hall for functions and activities.  Verneukpan Sopkombuis wants to give the people of Swartkop a better life!

We receive a yearly grant from the government to feed the people.  It is unfortunately not enough and we have to rely on donations to be sustainable.  We also have to fund all our other projects by ourselves and are therefore dependent on donations.