Principles
What we hold ourselves to.
Open to every South African family
There is no screening by race, language, religion or politics. We do not ask about race anywhere on this site, we never will, and there are no quotas of any kind. If you are South African and you want to go, this is for you.
Run in public
Every number is real and published as it stands, however small. The count has never been reset and never will be. We will publish which governments we approach and what they say, including when the answer is no.
No promises we cannot keep
We will never tell you a visa is guaranteed, that a country has agreed, or that a date is fixed, because none of those things are ours to promise. Enrolling registers your interest and nothing more.
Free, and free to leave
There is no fee to enrol and there never will be. We will never ask you for money. You can delete your family from the register yourself, permanently, at any time.
The imagery on this site
The town imagery on this site is AI-generated concept art. Nothing has been built. We label it because a proposal that overstates what exists is worth nothing.
Plainly
What Great Trek is - and what it is not.
It is
- A register of families who want to move together
- A proposal to build and pay our own way
- Open to every South African family, without exception
- Run in public, with numbers anyone can check
- Free to join, and free to leave
- A town that buys, hires and pays its tax where it is built
It is not
- A political movement or a party
- A refugee or asylum programme
- A visa service or an immigration consultancy
- A fundraiser, an investment scheme, or a church
- A promise that any government will say yes
- A gated compound, or a settlement that keeps to itself
About the name
About the name
"Trek" is one of the few South African words the whole world already uses. It means a long journey, made on purpose. That is the sense we mean, and it is the only sense we mean.
We are aware of the other one. The nineteenth-century trek was one community moving away from a government it rejected, and it ended with people taking land that other people were already living on. This is the opposite of that in every respect that matters. We are not taking land - we are asking to be invited onto it, to buy it, and to pay to build on it. We are not leaving to be left alone - we are leaving in order to join a country that already exists, under its laws, on its terms.
Great Trek is open to every South African family. Every one. There is no screening by race, language, religion or politics, there are no quotas, and there never will be. If you are South African and you want to go, this is for you.
We are not campaigning against South Africa. We are not asking anyone to join us in anger. Most of us will keep family, friends and business here, and we hope this country comes right. This is a decision about where to build the next forty years. It is not a verdict.
Enrolling registers your interest. It is not a visa application, it is not an immigration service, and it gives you no immigration status or right of entry to any country.