Port Elizabeth-based NGO Ubuntu Education Fund is to establish a new R30-million state-of-the-art, multipurpose community centre in Zwide township.

The building is the brainchild of Port Elizabeth-born architect Stan Field who is practising in San Francisco in the United States.

The NGO is receiving a R27-million investment from its fundraising office in New York, while R3-million will be raised from businesses and donors in South Africa.

The fund, which started in 1998, caters to about 40 000 vulnerable children and their families by providing HIV support services and other educational resources.

The multipurpose community centre, to be built in Qeqe Street, will include a clinic, a courtyard, a hall with a kitchen, meeting rooms, a computer centre and offices on its upper floor.

Field, who designed the building, said the concept was inspired by the way people in the township lived.

"People here use pathways to move around and that makes the community easily accessible from all directions.

"I wanted to capture the connectivity of the area in designing the building," he said.

Field said it would be made mostly from concrete, to give it strength, with some walls in polycarbonate - a translucent, glasslike material - while other walls will be made from wooden poles stacked horizontally to give the building an "earthy feeling".

Co-founder of Ubuntu, Banks Gwaxula, said the current offices of the organisation were too small to accommodate people who came every day for different services.

"We use old doctor's offices and we have different programmes running from those offices. It can get so packed that it's sometimes difficult to move around," he said.

"The building will help us expand our services, like having a community garden. The clinic will provide HIV voluntary counseling and testing services and can also provide more advanced information technology skills from our computer centre."

The sod turning will be held on April 9, with the building set to open in March 2009.

Eastern Province Herald