The Trust for Okavango Cultural and Development Initiatives (TOCaDI) works to empower communities in the Okavango sub-district to become self reliant and improve their standards of living.

TOCaDI serves over 21,000 people in the Okavango sub-district in Botswana, with particular attention to 21 villages and settlements – nine on the eastern side and 13 on the western side of the Okavango panhandle. As part of the Kuru Family of Organizations, TOCaDI works to address the needs of the San people as a marginalized community.

One of TOCaDI’s biggest focal areas has always been forming community trusts that can among other things, work towards their own land security – an issue communities face after being resettled by the government. To help people suffering from displacement, TOCaDI works to teach people income generating schemes and other livelihood activities such as drilling and equipping boreholes, harvesting thatching grass, tending vegetable gardens and fisheries, and facilitating eco-tourism projects such as the Teemacane Cultural Hiking Trail.

Other TOCaDI programs include:

• a health program where health workers and caregivers administer TB medication to patients in their respective settlements
• building pre-schools to help San children integrate into schooling systems and reducing the high rate of school drop-outs.