Izimbali Zesizwe is a grassroots non-governmental organisation (NGO) in an under-resourced community (often called “townships,” which was the name used to describe scattered communities outside of main cities that black South Africans were forced into during Apartheid). Izimbali Zesizwe is isiZulu for “Flowers of the Nation” and refers to the children that benefit from the NGO’s activities.
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| A road near Sthe's place in Imbali (a section of Edendale township) on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa |
In 2011 I began working with people from communities around the city of Pietermaritzburg for my PhD research, which looks at outcomes of TB preventive medication among people living with HIV. My introduction into these communities was through my research assistant, Ms. Sithembile (Sthe) Ndlovu, who was recommended to me by a research group from Harvard that works in the region. Sthe is the founder and head of Izimbali Zesizwe, which at the time she ran voluntarily out of her home, though she herself was unemployed and living in poverty. Since then, Sthe has been able to tap into the resources of the Stephen Lewis Foundation (a Canadian charity run by Stephen Lewis, journalist and former UN Special Envoy for HIV and AIDS in Africa. The Stephen Lewis Foundation by the way runs with the lowest cost-overhead of any Canadian charity, preferring to put its dollars in the hands of the people it serves rather than sending Canadians overseas to do the work).
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| Sthe at Izimbali Zesizwe's modest office in her home (the Mac laptop was provided to her through funding for my research project). |
Currently the Stephen Lewis Foundation funds her NGO for eight months per year and the rest is up to her and her league of volunteers to struggle to fund. I am running this small-scale campaign to help bridge that four-month gap.
I call the NGO “grassroots” because it is run by the community for the community. Sthe still works out of her home, but has been able to build a small home office and a larger kitchen where volunteers prepare meals for orphans and vulnerable children three times a week. When volunteers are unavailable, Sthe and her daughters prepare the meals themselves. Sthe and her daughters also shop routinely for the food provided by external funding. When the NGO has no money, the kids are turned away at her gate.
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| Local children at Sthe's front gate enjoying a healthy meal provided by Izimbali Zesizwe |
Sthe also coordinates donations from local bakeries and small-scale grocers that provide food that is near its expiry date. One day a week, vulnerable community members line up at the community centre where Sthe and her volunteers hand out parcels of these goods until they run out.
Additionally, Sthe managed to get permission from the local ward counsellor to build a community garden on a parcel of overgrown land. She and her volunteers regularly plant and tend to the vegetables that are then used as part of the child feeding programme or sold at low cost in the community to help fund the purchase of food for meals or food parcels.
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| The community garden maintained by Izimbali Zesizwe. |
Sthe also provides a number of other services to the community when she has the chance. She provides informal counselling out of her home when members of the community need social or psychological support, she has coordinated art classes and Sunday school out of her garage to help educate and support orphans and vulnerable children, and each year she holds a Christmas party for the children, complete with a meal, a movie, and donated gifts.
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| An art class for local kids run out of Sthe's garage (photo by Rachel Regina) |
Izimbali Zesizwe does not have a fancy website or a team of staff to send out donation mailers. Sthe does not even have internet or a landline in her home because the infrastructure in the township is too shoddy and the network coverage is hit and miss. It is a very small-scale operation, but it is certainly incredible what she can do with so little.
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When I met Sthe, I didn’t have funding for my thesis research and could only pay her a few dollars here and there, with a hope that we would eventually find external support for my research. Thankfully we did, and Sthe enjoys a higher standard of living, but this is only until my research draws to a close. Nonetheless, she was eager to help voluntarily in the beginning simply because of the impact the research might have on fighting disease in her community. Sthe is honestly an unsung hero, and that is why I am doing my best to raise as much as I can through the live below the line challenge. Even though the funds are deposited directly to me, every cent will go to Izimbali Zesizwe to support projects that help the poorest of the poor here in South Africa.
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| Sthe and I at a ceremony in 2014 as part of my research |
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