We welcome the ‘disruptive child’; the ‘difficult teenager’; the learner who is withdrawn, anxious or angry; and those who appear to cope but are masking, to keep the peace. These are the learners who need us most.
Community Keepers is a South African non-profit organisation established in 2009 dedicated to improving the mental health and well-being of learners and their caregivers in underserved communities. Our heart is to help schools to build supportive ecosystems where everyone feels a sense of belonging and where learning and development can prosper. We shift the traditional mental health paradigm by embedding dedicated, child-friendly therapy rooms directly on the school grounds, removing barriers to access. Our core activities include destigmatisation, therapeutic counselling and anchoring life-skills. By bringing these services directly to the school, we drastically improve the ratio of support to learners—moving from a strained national average of 1:23,000 down to an accessible 1:990 or lower.
In addition to this, we address local youth unemployment by training local community members in mental health first aid. Through these interventions, we seek to break generational cycles of trauma, de-stigmatise help-seeking behaviour, and restore dignity, ultimately allowing educators to focus on teaching while empowering thousands of vulnerable learners to build resilience, agency, and a sustainable culture of well-being.
South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, where few have much and most have almost nothing. Nobody should be denied access to mental health care because they are poor or live in a remote place. We are committed to the National Development Plan and the 2030 Agenda as we heed the call of the United Nations to “leave no one behind” and to “endeavour to reach the furthest first.”
Letters of Support
Western Cape Minister of Community Safety (2022)
National Treasury Jobs Fund (2023)
Western Cape Education Department (2025)
Bonnievale418 (2025)
Department of Education (2026)
VISION
Our vision is to improve the social and emotional wellbeing of learners and promote supportive school communities where learning and development can prosper.
OBJECTIVE
To improve the social and emotional wellbeing of learners and their school environment so that learning and development can prosper.
VALUES
PARTNERSHIP: Collaborating with others towards a common goal.
TRUST: Being reliable in everything we do.
INTEGRITY: Exercising moral courage by accepting responsibility for all our actions.
PROFESSIONALISM: Utilising our skills to deliver a high-quality service
Our Board of Directors (“the Board”) meets quarterly to maintain close oversight over the activities of the organisation and annually to discuss strategy. Formal minutes are recorded and circulated before each meeting.
The management team consists of the CEO, five Area Managers who report into the Operations Manager and Development Manager.
The board approves the annual budget and provides the necessary authority for expenditure. Expenditure outside of the approved budget must be approved by the board. No single individual exercises unfettered powers of decision-making. The management team has clear mandates and carry out their duties within the guidance of a clear strategy and plan. The board holds the CEO to account and ensures that management complies with all legislation, regulation and policies. The governance structures strive to achieve transparency, accountability, integrity and ethical leadership and provide practical guidance regarding sustainable development of the activities of the company.
SDG3 Sustainable Development Goal Target 3.4 aims to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases by one-third by 2030 and to promote mental health. Indicator 3.4.2 specifically tracks the suicide mortality rate to monitor global and local mental well-being. We track the more commonly used Subjective Wellbeing using the international standard WHO5 index.
The South African National Development Plan (NDP) 2030 recognises the crucial role of social welfare service professionals, including social workers, in addressing poverty and inequality, aiming to increase their numbers and strengthen their capacity to support vulnerable populations and communities.
The BUILD BACK BETTER MAC (Ministerial Advisory Committee) recommendation (May 2022) says: “The implementation of non-professional interventions within a framework of psychological first aid . Such interventions involve training community members to identify mental health signs and symptoms, are cost-effective and lend themselves to task-shifting models.”
Accolades
2025, top 10 most-cited papers published by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health journal
2024 and 2025, in the Top 100 Education Innovations in the HundrED Global Collection
2024, CSI Legacy Awards Finalist
2023, winner of the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) Innovation award (Science Oscar)
2022, semi-finalist in the South African CSI Legacy Awards
2021, in partnership with AAA School of Advertising, won GOLD in The New Generation Overall Student Group of the Year Award category.
2019, ranked 27th in the African Civil Society Organisations excellence awards, a joint initiative between the Rockefeller Foundation and EPIC-Africa Foundation.
2017, won a Annual Impumelelo Social Innovation Awards.
Our History
“I was deeply troubled when I discovered that there was only one state social worker and one psychologist to service 45 schools and 32 000 children in the Winelands.” Andre du Plessis, Chairman and co-founder
Although there had been numerous attempts at exploring the considerable problems that South African schools were facing, our founders recognised that little research had been done from the learners’ and educators’ points of view. This research aimed to describe the needs, problems, and support that learners and educators experience, to provide guidelines for effective service delivery. The research was undertaken, with the permission of the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), from May to September 2008.
The research team visited five (5) secondary schools in Stellenbosch where individual and group interviews were conducted.
- 100 individual interviews (Four learners per grade per school)
- 25 group discussions (One class per grade per school – approximately 750 learners)
- 50 individual interviews (10 educators per school, including the 5 principals)
The concerns, as explained by learners and educators, were categorised into four main areas:
- psychosocial
- educational
- recreational
- material.
Although the research confirmed the idea that learners and educators have a legion of concerns, the most prominent concerns were in the psychosocial area of functioning. The negative influence of these concerns on the overall functioning of the participants was evident in their blatant expression of the need for formal support.
The research report with results and recommendations was presented to the WCED. Dr. Michael le Cordeur (Cape Winelands Education Management and Development Centre) responded:
“… the results are insightful… consequently I want to give my offices’ support to the project and want to recommend it for any school… it will be to the advantage of the learners, educators and ultimately the school.”
The findings of the study were also used in writing an article that was published in the academic journal, Social Work: A Professional Journal for the Social Worker, 2010:46(1).
Community Keepers was registered as an NPO on 26 March 2009, and is unique in that we establish a full time, dedicated mental health facility on-site at schools which serve low income areas. Instead of expecting people to find the time and money to go to services, we bring the service to them.
Follow this link to read an article in CFO South Africa Magazine: “How Capitec’s André du Plessis helps safeguard the future of children in Cape Town”