We take our role as employer, community member and custodian of the environment to heart.
Mahela Group is accredited with Siza, the Sustainability Initiative of South Africa, which certifies compliance with ethical labour and environmental practices.
We believe that our responsibility as an employer goes beyond merely paying our employees a salary. By offering various on-going training programmes such as computer, life skills training and adult literacy classes, employees are empowered to improve their standard of living. Working moms can focus on their careers, knowing that toddlers are well looked after by trained personnel in a Mahela Group crèche. With an on-farm primary school, their children need not walk long distances.
Mahela Group promotes a healthy and well-balanced life by way of organising and sponsoring events such as soccer tournaments, fishing and cycling competitions. A vegetable project has also been rolled out where vegetable tunnels were erected on farms. Workers are supplied with everything they need to produce vegetables for themselves and their families.
At Mahela Group our employees are not merely workers, they are part of a dynamic and valued team.
The pride of our employee empowerment efforts is the Khomanani Mahela project. Mahela Group identified promising junior managers who Mahela can upskill into commercial citrus farmers. Mahela provides the land and all the initial inputs for a start-up citrus farm and farms the orchards with the beneficiaries who became co-owners of the land. Advanced farming know-how and skills such as financial planning, management and marketing will be imparted to the beneficiaries on top production skills. They will also share in future profits.
As caretaker of the earth, we strive towards minimising our environmental footprint. Environmentally sustainable practices, as encompassed in the various standards Mahela Group is accredited to, are followed diligently.
We have an integrated pest management system in place whereby the spraying of chemicals is kept to a minimum and natural predators are released to help control pests. Water management is optimised with the latest technology such as an irrigation system using continuous drippers.
A love for nature sees that large indigenous trees are left in place as far as possible when land is cleared for new orchards. We also regularly plant large numbers of indigenous trees on our farms.
Mahela plays an active role in the conservation of wildlife. Game species such as the African wild dog, African lion, rhinoceros and sable are some of the species we have helped to protect.
As one of the pioneering enterprises in the Lowveld, Mahela Group has and always will play a crucial role in the socio-economic well-being of the region. Apart from providing employment in a province where the unemployment and poverty rate is one of the highest in South Africa, the Group supports various non-profit entities and schools.
One of these schools, the Junction primary school, is funded almost entirely by the Mahela Group, who also provided the land the school is built on. At the school, children are given the opportunity to get a good education, thanks to properly trained teachers, safe, functioning facilities and resources.
