Khaya Lam Receives the 2023 FW de Klerk Goodwill Award

The FW de Klerk Foundation takes great pleasure in announcing that Khaya Lam, meaning "my home", will be the recipient of its 2023 FW de Klerk Goodwill Award.  

The award, established in 2010, gives recognition to individuals and organisations that have made extraordinary contributions to the promotion of goodwill between South Africans. 

The Khaya Lam Project was launched by the Free Market Foundation ('FMF') in 2013 and is managed by project managers and conveyancers around the country. It makes the ideal of property ownership a practical reality by helping qualifying disadvantaged South Africans, who live in homes formally owned by government, to obtain title deeds to their properties.   

The FW de Klerk Foundation chose Khaya Lam as the recipient of this year's Goodwill Award because property ownership transforms the lives of ordinary people everywhere: it gives them dignity; it empowers them; it provides security - and opens up new economic opportunities for them. 

Currently (according to Stats SA), 11 783 638 households own their own homes – giving South Africa a relatively high ownership rate of approximately 64%. In 2019, the Centre for Housing Finance in Africa reported that, of these households, only 6,6 million had registered title deeds – leaving more than five million households without title deeds. Most of these occupy properties built by municipalities before and after 1994.   

Some families built their own small houses but did not acquire title deeds. This reduces the residents of these homes to the status of mere tenants, with no secure way of being able to sell their properties or leave them to their families when they pass on.  

A major factor in the backlog is the cost of transferring title deeds (+/- R1850 according to Khaya Lam), which is simply unaffordable to most of the legitimate inhabitants, especially the elderly, pensioners, single parent families and the unemployed.  

So far, 10 000 title deeds have been successfully transferred to the rightful homeowners through the FMF's Khaya Lam initiative. The FW de Klerk Foundation applauds Khaya Lam for this great achievement and how it has made a positive impact on the lives of so many South Africans. 

The Khaya Lam initiative follows in the footsteps of the remarkable previous recipients of the award: Chief Executive Officer of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Danny Jordaan (2011); author, actor and activist Pieter-Dirk Uys (2012); bursary organisation "Studietrust" (2013); businessman Patrice Motsepe (2014); youth empowerment programme "Afrika Tikkun" (2015); Adv Thuli Madonsela and the Office of the Public Protector (2016); the coach and athlete team of Mrs Anna (Ans) Botha and Mr Wayde van Niekerk (2017); NGO and disaster relief group "Gift of the Givers" (2018); the political economist Moeletsi Mbeki (2020) and the NGO and food relief provider "Ladles of Love" (2022). 

The Goodwill Award will be presented to the Free Market Foundation at the FW de Klerk Foundation’s Annual Conference on 2 February 2024. 

Statement issued by the FW de Klerk Foundation, 15 December 2023