About Us
Building Socially Responsible Businesses, Marketing and Events
Grow Community Grow is a Knysna based, woman led, conscious and community-driven Community Development Agency. We offer creative production, corporate wellness and greening, and regenerative solutions that are friendly to people and the planet with the intention of empowering communities around these business hubs.
We believe business has three communities. Your business itself and how your company operates as an internal community, your online community - your socials and website, and your physical community - customers, suppliers, sister and brother companies and those in the area around you. Our goal is to help your business thrive by consciously building these three communities with a regenerative future in mind.
Our Story
Grow Community Grow was born in 2022 on the border of Limpopo and Botswana during a volunteer mission to a counter-poaching unit.
On a journey to find purpose after the pandemic, Camilla Coutts, founder of Grow Community Grow, drove 20 hours across South Africa to a remote location to lend her experience to ICORP, International Coalition of Ranger Protection. There, she found a unit of brave and dedicated rangers - who were pioneering regenerative ways to counter poaching, making changes to be more community-driven, while figuring out how to sustain the economy in the bush without tourism.
After eight weeks in the bush and many conversations with the CEO, she consulted, researched, and planned sustainable strategies, as well as helping to manifest their new website in collaboration with Intuition Design in Johannesburg. ICORP CEO, Matthew McDonald, motivated Camilla to start her own business, helping NGO and business grow in the same way she had assisted ICORP.
Taking her industry experience, Camilla returned to Cape Town to establish Grow Community Grow. Within a year, Grow Community Grow went off-grid, moved to Knysna, built a regeneration center, began forming community ties, putting down roots for a big tree to flourish.
Meet The Tribe
Our permanent work force is a two wo/man team who lives on site at Grow Community Grow’s Regeneration Center - where we have set up our home, community workshop, office, volunteer facilities and The Outeniqua Stone Circle.
We balance our time between work and tending the land, setting up our permaculture systems, hosting communal healing and creative events - with the aim of generating abundance and giving back to the community around us.
Our extended regeneration force is a trusted, tested, handpicked and experienced pool of creative, education, permaculture and wellness experts that span across the country and work on a contract basis.
Cami Rose Coutts
Founder, CEO, Creative, Project Manager - does most of the work, delegates when necessary.
Bridging the worlds of academia, creative arts, permaculture, social change and spirituality, Cami is a community builder and holistic wellness facilitator dedicated to collective transformation.
Cami started her career in 2003, at the age of 16, as a PA at Authentic Ideas, who ran Woodstock - one of the top youth music festivals in the country at the time. She was with the company for five years, while she studied a masters degree in Anthropology, an honors degree in Philosophy with undergrad studies in Film, Visual and Performance Art, Stop-Frame Animation, South African Film and Theatre, International Relations and English.
Over the last 20 years she has worked in events, advertising, corporate communications and film split between project management, marketing management and content creation, performance, art department and everything in between. She is a creative swiss army knife.
She is a grassroots activist, producing the iconic Trash Cabaret - a community circus that broke cultural barriers in Cape Town, she has collaborated with artists on multiple youth and community upliftment projects,. She currently manages "The Young Hopes Football Club", a rural soccer club that empowers over forty boys and young men - a Grow Community Grow initiative.
Cami has run circuses, travelled the world and the country playing music, managed SANRAL's Cheki-Coast, Supa Strikas, ICORP and The Changing Tides Foundation's Social Media Campaigns, created content, produced décor and entertainment for the TOPS at SPAR Bierfest and Wineshow. She has worked on international film and television productions for BBC Prime, HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime and kykNet.
She got tired of producing worlds and content that had momentary impact and decided to jump ship and start building the new world.
She has a love for nature, all things regenerative, and has spent the last 11 years immersing herself in this sphere, working as a free-diving guide for Shark Warriors, creating natural soaps and lifestyle products with Foraged, hosting seaweed foraging workshops, working with conservation NGO's in counter-poaching, studying and facilitating in the spheres of permaculture, somatics and yoga - utilising all the skills she has procured to better the world.
She currently lives in a cabin in a forest off-grid - in close proximity to a good surf break, running this empire like a philosopher queen in a Douglas Adams novel..
Tao Barrett
Business, Product and Brand Development
Tao Barrett, creator of the Outeniqua Stone Circle, is a multi-talented creative whose work spans art, design, entrepreneurship and embodied spirituality. Lover of the natural world and its inhabitants. Focusing his current spiritual offerings on collective healing initiatives and indigenous elemental modalities.
With a deep-rooted passion for community building and art, Tao’s work serves as an invitation to engage with diverse forms of creativity and synergy. His artistic journey reflects an ongoing commitment to inspire through authentic expression.
His passion for music drove him to become a founding member of Down South Natives, a hip hop, elemental expression & reggae movement dedicated to community upliftment, storytelling as well as Individual + cultural expression.
Tao has also facilitated youth workshops on the creative elements of self expression for inner & outer alchemy.
In his work career he distributed, developed, marketed and sold many local and international brands. In 2020 founding ZenFern Studios, a designer furniture company showcased at Decorex “23 in Cape Town. The business is in metamorphosis as he moves towards a sustainable and community oriented model. His passion for plant medicine led him to co-found Frequency Fluid, a range of botanical extracts that celebrates the healing power of nature.
Tao's creative journey called him to author the book “Reminder to Self” and its companion divination card set which can be purchased on the Deckible website or mobile app.
Months after receiving multiple visions in meditation of an old bushman, Tao met him in person at a summer solstice festival. This meeting set in motion a plan to bring together different lineages of inidgenous cultures from across southern africa and the world. The aim was to use the representatives as proxy for healing their bloodlines and bring all into good relations, shifting the distorted energetic resonance caused by colonisation and suppression of spiritual power. In this process Tao received this water blesssing and after months of working alongside the Outeniqua Khoi was initiated into offering these sacred, ancient ceremonial works
Emilia Domagala
Director, Sustainability Consultant
Emilia is a permaculture designer, consultant and facilitator, founder and past co-director of Sustainable Abundance Permaculture, and sustainability lecturer at Cheeba Cannabis Academy in Johannesburg.
After completing a Bachelor of Architectural Studies at WITS, Emilia dabbled in digital art and animation before discovering Permaculture.
Emilia completed her Permaculture Design Course in 2015 through Permaculture South Africa, now known as Serenity Permaculture under Hazel and Andrew Mugford. After a year of solo practice she joined Sustainable Abundance Permaculture in 2016.
She has been involved in numerous projects from small kitchen gardens to community scale food gardens. She's also an Ecopreneurs facilitator at Food and Trees for Africa.
Emilia has played a key role in the development of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) digital system which is being developed by Straight from the Ground (NPC). This system links small-scale organic farmers to a market through a box scheme, physical store and app.
Sustainable and regenerative systems are Emilia’s passion and she is continuously learning within these fields, using her knowledge to empower people to take care of their own food needs, designing and building food and forest gardens and tapping into the abundance of our mother planet for the benefit of all.
Jacqui van Staden
Photography and Videography
David Tomsu
Corporate Theatre and Music Workshops
Davide studied Fine Art at Durban Tech and Performance Art at UCT.
He was winner of New Signatures exhibition at NSA gallery, and performed in theaters around South Africa and in UK. He studied music and ethnomusicology and has gigged at many major festivals and venues, as well as an international tour with his band Shamanzi. He is an instrument builder, sound engineer, video editor.
During the last years of Apartheid, he was part of a project in Suurbraak to bring together high school youth together from segregated white, coloured and black schools, for 2 to 3 week camps. With the participants, they workshopped drama skits, played indigenous music, worked in the organic gardens, built with wattle and daub, created art, went on a day hike, and after each camp, did a performance in Cape Town showcasing the activities of the camp.
Davide worked for over a decade in corporate theater, as Sonic Weaver Productions, from designing big productions to solo/duo performance art. He created music for the shows in his home studio, made costumes and props, scripted the shows and performed. He also worked with kids entertainment as a pixie character, and did storytelling with school kids using music and participation.
The Sun Xa Experiment
Healing through Music and Dance
Sun Xa Experiment Harmonizing Communities:
The Sun Xa Experiment, a cultural music project that enriches local culture through art and music.
In the heart of every community lies its unique culture, a vibrant tapestry woven by traditions, art, music, and shared experiences. In this context, a local cultural music project plays a pivotal role in not just preserving but also enriching these cultural values, making significant contributions to their community.
Sun Xa Experiment gives back to local communities within the country through the dual mediums of art and music. The band believes heavily on artistic engagement and community integration. The band serves as a bridge; connecting diverse elements within a community, by curating events that bring people together, and fostering unity through shared cultural experiences.
The project hosts free concerts, workshops, and music lessons and creates accessible platforms for all community members to participate in and appreciate local culture and arts. This promotes a sense of belonging, and cultivates an appreciation for the community's rich cultural heritage. This is evident within interactions with organizations’ such as Thanda Community Center, that Sun Xa Experiment has had a community art relationship with, that dates back to 2020.
The band often hold workshops and training sessions for young people, teaching them about music, art, and culture, which includes, making their own musical instrument, playing djembe drum, dance, singing, and string instruments like electric guitar and bass guitar. This not only equips the youth with new skills but also instills in them a deep respect for their cultural heritage and for the music that is fused into culture.
Such an initiative fosters the growth of a new generation of artists and culture-bearers, ensuring the continuance of local traditions and arts.
Sun Xa Experiment utilizes the facilitates healing in the communities they work with, using the power of connection to address social issues. The band composes and performs songs that tackle pressing community issues, using their platform to raise awareness and drive change.
Additionally, they often participate in therapeutic music programs, helping community members cope with trauma or stress.
Our Clients
