Projects

During initial visits to Msinga in 2013, community members mentioned several projects they would like to start in Ngubevu with assistance from Hannes Zoellner and Zulu Trails. Sandile conducted a survey to determine what was the no. 1 priority for the community. It was unanimous. A community garden!

Initially the community focussed on a small garden that was already in operation. The garden called Sibonga Inkosi garden, meaning “A gift from God”, only had one water pump which was broken and needed a major service. The garden also needed fencing. It was impossible to fix the old pump and so Hannes bought a new one.

More people wanted to be part of the garden and so Sandile wrote a sponsorship letter to the Department of Agriculture in Cedara. The Department’s response was positive and so the garden was given a fence and it was possible to increase the size of the garden considerably. The garden has proved to be very successful. It is now bigger that the size of the sport field. With more people joining the garden, the pumps were too small to irrigate the entire area and so Sandile personally bought two extra pumps.

In September 2015, at the height of a severe 7 year drought in Zululand, a group of students from America visited the Msinga project for a few days. They that both water pumps were not working. The students spent a whole day carrying buckets of water from the Tugela river to water the tomato plants - a task that made them aware of how hardworking rural Zululand women farmers are. The students also helped with harvesting the tomatoes. The farmers were extremely grateful for this assistance, which undoubtedly saved their crop.

Storage room for the garden

With the increase in production, space was needed to keep the surplus. Fortunately, in 2014, the Zulu Trail project for a group of German and Swiss students was to assist with building a tool shed/storage room for the produce harvested in the garden.

The garden currently feeds 20 families and also supplies needy families in the community. A plan is underway to sell the surplus produce to an open market in Pietermaritzburg.

: Vegetables at Ngubevu

: The garden at Ngubevu Msinga area

: Building the storage room

In the Qhudeni area students travel more than 10km to go to school. There was no pre-school in the area so young children had to jump straight into Grade one without being nurtured and prepared at pre-school. For a long time Hannes had been keen to build a pre-school in the area and it turned out to be a perfect place to build one.

The project took much longer to finish than anticipated because the builder was not committed to his work but, with the help of community members, the pre-school was up and running in 2015. It has 35 learners who are registered with the school. The name of the pre-school is Phansi Kwezinyawo meaning “Underneath the Foot”. This is because the school is built at the foot of Qhudeni mountain.

Zulu Trails has helped the school to receive recognition from the government and it is now registered with the Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal. The school also has electricity. The challenge currently facing the school is that the teachers are not being trained and there is no feeding scheme in operation.

In February 2017, severe storms in Msinga swept away many houses. Mr Nkomo’s two rondavels that the Zulu Trail uses were also damaged by the storms. One collapsed and was completely destroyed, while the other lost its roof.

Mr Nkomo rebuilt the walls and the roof structure of the destroyed rondavel but welcomed assistance from the Zulu Trail in March 2017 to help with building a new roof .

It was a very challenging experience for the majority of the students because some had never held a hammer before, let alone hitting a nail into wood. After a couple of days, they were very skillful and proud to almost complete the rondavel roof for a grateful Mr Nkomo.