Community members and local innovators will meet in Rustenburg for Khulisa Social Solutions’ HEARTBEAT event for World Heart Day on the 29th  September 2026, to explore solutions and opportunities for their communities. Convened by Khulisa, the event will bring residents into conversation with community organisations, government, business and other local partners. Together they will consider how to respond to local challenges through Khulisa’s Collaborative Implementation Model (CIM). 

Khulisa has worked in Rustenburg for 26 years. The gathering builds on four years of more intensive community engagement, during which Khulisa and its partners have reached more than 15,000 people and facilitated more than 200 Dialogue Circles. These conversations have brought forward residents’ experiences of family wellbeing, safety, education, employment, substance abuse and access to support. They have also identified local strengths, ideas and people who can help shape the response. 

“We want community members to be active partners in deciding what happens next,” said Lesley Ann van Selm, Founder and Managing Director of Khulisa Social Solutions. “Rustenburg has knowledge, creativity and commitment within its own communities. Heart Day offers a chance to bring that energy together with the resources and experience of other stakeholders.”  

The event is designed as a working conversation. Community members and innovators will be invited to describe promising ideas, identify what would help them grow and explore where different organisations can contribute. The aim is to make connections between people who see the same challenge from different positions: a young person seeking work, an NGO supporting families, a school, a local enterprise or a public service provider. 

CIM provides a way to move from those conversations to collaborative action. Participants first examine evidence from the community and agree which issue they want to address. They then identify existing assets and opportunities, decide what each partner can contribute and agree how to follow progress. The model is intended to turn a shared concern into a practical commitment, with clear responsibilities and a way for residents to see what follows. 

Khulisa uses Systemic Inventive Thinking in its Dialogue Circles to ask what lies beneath a problem and what could change it. AI-assisted analysis helps organise the many accounts and themes; Khulisa researchers check the results against the original community voices. This approach helps participants recognise connections between challenges and consider responses that draw on more than one sector or organisation. 

For example, a young person’s path into work may depend on suitable training, transport, local employers, mentorship and opportunities to gain experience. Family wellbeing may depend on safe spaces, accessible support, income and effective referrals between community organisations and services. CIM helps the people responsible for different parts of that picture plan together within the specific place where residents live. 

Local innovators may bring ideas for enterprise, food and water security, arts, education or community wellbeing. At the event, the focus will be on exploring which ideas answer priorities identified by residents, which partners can help test them and what support would make them viable. Existing initiatives can also be connected so that a useful service or opportunity reaches more people without having to start again in every neighbourhood. 

The meeting will not be expected to resolve every issue in a day. Its intended outcome is a foundation for continued work: a clearer picture of the opportunities people wants to pursue, relationships between those able to act, and a route for turning promising proposals into defined activities. Khulisa will encourage participants to distinguish actions they can begin locally from those that require further planning, resources or decisions by other institutions. 

The discussion will also consider how to strengthen the local organisations already serving residents. Khulisa’s national NGO capacitation work supports community organisations to improve the quality of their services, develop skills, use evidence and build effective partnerships. By connecting those organisations with innovators, institutions and investors in Rustenburg, the event aims to create a stronger local ecosystem of support. 

“Our hope is that participants leave with more than inspiration,” van Selm said. “We want them to identify opportunities they can pursue together, name the people who will take the next steps and remain connected as the work develops. The people of Rustenburg should be able to see how their ideas influence action.” 

Under the theme “One Community. One Heart. One Future,” HEARTBEAT Rustenburg will highlight how community knowledge and place-based partnerships can turn local challenges into opportunities. Khulisa hopes the relationships and commitments formed there will continue beyond World Heart Day and provide lessons for similar work elsewhere in South Africa.