Noziphiwo Zumani felt defeated as she watched her hometown deteriorate and its people lose hope.
Nomsa Ngwenya knew how to grow cocktail tomatoes, but she had no transport to get them to market.
Dipuo Phakathi’s side hustle was showing promise, but she needed help to get it to the next level.
Today, all three women are seeing their dreams come true thanks to support from Kagiso Trust, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary.
Kagiso Trust CEO Dr Mankodi Moitse said as SA celebrates Women’s Day on Saturday, it is inspiring to see how their programmes have been able to ignite women’s capacity, empowering them to drive sustainable change for themselves and their communities.
“Everything we do is based on the belief that investing in people is the greatest investment of all, and the women who have benefited from our local governance, education and socioeconomic development programmes have proved that time and time again,” she said.
Zumani, 42, said she remembered the Eastern Cape town of Makhanda when it was “at its peak, economically and socially”.
But things deteriorated.
That changed in 2023 when Kagiso Trust ran Asset-Based Capacity-Building community-led development workshops as part of its pilot Collaborative Governance Model in the town.
Zumani and others were inspired to launch a nonprofit company, Imbumba Yeemboni (“a collective unity of visionaries”) to tackle social challenges.
They identified four strategic pillars on which to build “sustainable solutions that foster empowerment” — tourism, environment and healthy living, sport and education.
Today they host heritage tours guided by residents who share authentic Xhosa stories.
The second pillar will be introduced later this year, aiming to improve nutrition and the physical landscape by establishing community gardens and rehabilitating dumpsites.
Zumani says Imbumba Yeemboni has become a “beacon of hope”.
Ngwenya has a master’s degree in agricultural science, but instead of following a conventional career she decided to set up an organic farming business in the Mopani District of Limpopo, specialising in cocktail tomatoes, herbs and moringa.
Things were difficult without international certification or a way to transport her products to market.
This changed in 2022 when she joined the SPAR Rural Hub farmer development programme, which is supported by Kagiso Trust’s Tyala Impact Fund.
The programme provides small-scale farmers with resources, training and access to markets, and Ngwenya says it was “a game-changer”.
Last year, she was named Female Farmer of the Year at the Kagiso SPAR Agri-Awards that celebrated excellence among the emerging farmers in SPAR’s Mopani Rural Hub programme, and she used her prize money to invest in solar-powered irrigation.
Phakathi, a qualified engineer, was working in Standard Bank’s enterprise development department in 2017 when a negative experience with a cabinet supplier persuaded her to start a side hustle, DeNic Cabinets, in partnership with a carpenter.
In 2019, she resigned from her job to focus on the business full-time, but then Covid-19 struck.
Fortunately, Phakathi spent the first half of 2020 as a member of the first cohort in Kagiso Trust’s PROPreneurX, a property entrepreneur accelerator programme.
It was established to support black property entrepreneurs to be market and finance ready, to grasp opportunities in the property sector and the overall entrepreneurial ecosystem.
When she graduated from PROPreneurX, Phakathi said she had learnt the value of strategy, deepened her leadership skills and built business networks.
“I wanted to see where I needed to place my business, who I needed to market and speak to,” she said.
“Collaboration is key. I wanted to build a network of trusted suppliers I could go into projects with.
“Who better to refer to a client than the same people you have sat down in a classroom with and know? For me that was gold.”
Phakathi now delivers high-end custom furniture across SA and internationally, and she has represented SA on the global stage at Decorex Africa, an exhibition in Paris, and as a speaker at the Africa Investment Forum in Morocco.
Moitse says the Trust’s work in education, through its Beyers Naudé Schools Development Programme and Eric Molobi Scholarship Programme, has also had a powerful impact on women.
“To mention just one example, Takalani Netshia from the village of Tsianda in Limpopo was among the first cohort of Eric Molobi scholars in 2007.
“She completed her National Diploma in Civil Engineering in 2010, and today she is a project manager at Eskom,” she said.
The Herald
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