The Order of the Baobab in Bronze

Clara Basenjeng Masinga Awarded for:

Outstanding contribution to rural development.

Profile of Clara Basenjeng Masinga

Clara Basenjeng Masinga personifies resilience, courage, compassion and innovation in the face of extreme poverty and despair, she always had that deeply humane ability to understand the suffering of others and a burning desire to do something about it.

Masinga is currently a manager of the Kgautswane Multi-purpose Community Centre, which she helped to start. She has facilitated a process of getting final-year University students from different academic backgrounds to come to various villages to do their practicals as a form of social reinvestment. She has assisted various schools in fundraising and management. Masinga also supervises and motivates home-based care groups.

Her numerous awards include the Old Mutual, Sowetan, City Press Award for Community-builder of the Year (1997), Old Mutual, Sowetan Award for Community-builder of the decade (1997), two world awards for innovation in the fight against poverty (awarded in Washington DC, 2000) and SA Heroes Award from the Star Newspaper in 2001.