Meet our Partners and learn more about the work they’re doing.
The Bertha Challenge
The Bertha Challenge is an opportunity for activists and investigative journalists to spend a year focussing on one pressing social justice issue.
Successful applicants receive a non-residential paid fellowship and a project budget to work independently and together to:
Investigate the causes of and solutions to the annual Bertha Challenge question
Amplify their findings to a wider targeted audience
Connect with diverse stakeholders for information, support and sustainable impact
Bertha Spaces
Bertha’s Theory of Spaces
Community, Sustainability and Reciprocity
At Bertha we believe that providing sanctuary and space for organizations, movements and individuals most marginalized within society is a critical intervention in furthering their work towards social justice. This belief is underpinned by three facts regularly conveyed by our activist partners:
Activists and marginalized groups desperately need space but often find themselves excluded (by design). This exclusion – which largely plays out in intersectional, class and racialized terms – keeps working class and poor people from gathering together, growing together and organizing together.
Strategic impact is greatest when action is collective.Opportunities for collaboration, creativity and solidarity are maximized when people come together in spaces from varied backgrounds, disciplines, fields, issues and geographies.
There is a magic that happens when people come together in space that is impossible to replicate.A year of COVID lockdowns and travel restrictions have affirmed how important working and interacting with people in physical spaces can be. Remote communication will remain an important tool, but it will always have its limits. We fundamentally believe in the combined power of time and space to forge meaningful and lasting bonds between people, projects and places.
Bertha Retreat, Franschhoek Valley, South Africa
The Retreat is intended to be a transformative space where groups can gather to hold trainings, facilitate dialogues and work on campaign development. Alongside the venue, Bertha Foundation has established a fund that enables organizations within the Bertha Network – who may not have the resources to access such spaces – to convene at the retreat.
Bertha House, Cape Town, South Africa
Bertha House is more than a building. It’s about creating a vibrant community of people wanting to change the world – a space recognized locally & globally as a cutting-edge hub for collaboration and innovation in activism.
Our recently refurbished building with more than 2 000 m² of floor space is located in Cape Town, South Africa, in the historic, bustling and centrally-located Mowbray neighbourhood.
Bertha House will be filled with a diverse mix of activists including organizers, educators, storytellers and other changemakers united in their commitment to building a more just city, country and planet.
We aim to achieve this through the creation of inclusive, stimulating, safe and exciting spaces in which activists and groups can come together to work, organize, learn, create, collaborate and celebrate.
In 2021 Bertha House will launch an activist cowork community, expanded public events and activity spaces, a media and storytelling laboratory, a cinema and an eatery and food-justice hub.
Partner Highlights
Our Partners
TAP TO INTERACT
Bertha Earth
Bertha Earth’s mission is to grow a diverse network of young environmental leaders, storytellers and changemakers who protect, nurture and celebrate our planet, now and for generations to come.
Be The Earth
Be The Earth is a hybrid organization that combines for-profit and philanthropic investments, envisioning local and regenerative ecosystems that nurture all beings.
Philippi Village
At Philippi Village their mission is to provide guests, tenants, community and staff with a safe and integrated development space where they can come together, learn, share, work, play and shape Philippi Village’s future.
Bertha Earth
Location: United Kingdom
Bertha Earth’s mission is to grow a diverse network of young environmental leaders, storytellers and changemakers who protect, nurture and celebrate our planet, now and for generations to come.
One of Bertha Earth’s core programs is the Bertha Earth (BE) Ambassadors Programme which is an innovative 2-3 year program for 11-13 year olds, with the opportunity for older ambassadors, 16-18 year olds, to become senior mentors.
The program consists of a blend of environmental activism, impactful storytelling, leadership, community engagement, self-care and resilience training and supports young people who are committed and fired up about having a positive environmental impact.
Be The Earth
Location: United Kingdom
Be The Earth is a hybrid organization that combines for-profit and philanthropic investments, envisioning local and regenerative ecosystems that nurture all beings. Be the Earth primarily supports people and organizations that are actively engaged in the transition of food systems, from exploitative to regenerative practices. Acknowledging the urgent need for systemic approaches to leverage impact – ancient cultures, wellbeing and alternative economies, as well as other key-subjects, are also featured within the organization’s diverse formats of investing in the future. From activists to CEO’s, from grassroots associations to start-ups, from unrestricted grants to equity and loans: Be The Earth fosters transformation through nurturing relationships within an ecosystem of people, programs and places – all of whom are partners, allies and friends. Based in the UK, the organization also focuses on Brazil and South Africa as main geographic areas.
Philippi Village (PV) works with stakeholders every day to better understand how to craft offerings to respond to immediate needs, and shifting and evolving to respond to this.
Philippi Village started this process 2 years ago with a community mapping activity where they mapped tenant needs, and also mapped the homes surrounding their space to get a better idea of who their neighbours are, what they need and what skills and resources they have that Philippi Village can learn from. This process helped them to better understand who made up their community and how better to respond to their needs.
They unpacked the results and shared them with the community through a series of events and public participation exercises. Where they also got the community to unpack these results and test the findings. For example, if people said they wanted more “sports” PV held a festival where community members could test out different sporting activities from soccer to cycling and skateboarding. They then used these findings to help design their offerings.
Philippi Village is at the start of a really exciting project called Project Placemaker, where they are developing 8 hectares of land to respond to these findings from their work with communities.
Slowly, their space is becoming a community hub – a home for the community living in Philippi and a place for the professional and entrepreneurial community within Philippi, providing much needed space for entrepreneurs to grow their companies whilst at the same time, providing the community of Philippi with access to the local services offered by the entrepreneurs, and broader use of the safe and secure facilities.
All of Philippi Village’s activities are guided by a set of principles prioritizing community engagement, involvement and collaboration.
IMAGE CREDITS: Smallholders Foundation, Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education’s Intro to Art Activism Course, in April 2019, participants practising with various media forms, image captured by Seth Deacon, Philippi Village, and Gavin Silber.
