Niki Moore
It took a series of natural disasters before the Zululand Chamber of Business Foundation (ZCBF) was established.
In 1985 a cyclone swept away rural dwellings in Zululand and left thousands homeless. Local businesses jumped in to help, led by Richard’s Bay Coal Terminal CEO Mike Dunn. They raised R200000 in relief and founded the Zululand Rural Foundation.
But the foundation quickly realised that the problem was greater than simply flood relief rural people were so poor that they were extremely vulnerable to these disasters. The foundation realised that it should change its focus to deal with the broader problems of poverty.
Devastating floods in 1987 and the outbreak of political violence in the early Nineties made the work of the rural foundation even more urgent, and in 1995 it became the Zululand Chamber of Business Foundation, designed to carry out poverty relief as an affiliate of the Zululand Chamber of Business.
Its first task was job creation and an early project involved teaching rural people to make wooden products using the wood from discarded packing cases. In 1997 the Billiton Aluminium Hillside smelter in Richard’s Bay was completed. The company decided to donate its now-empty construction village to the foundation. This became the nucleus for the ZCBF Community Park.
This cluster of buildings became a local business service centre, a community learning centre and an office park providing low-cost office space to NGOs and small businesses.
The philosophy behind the community park is to bring together different poverty-relief and empowerment initiatives, make corporate social responsibility funding most effective, and offer a range of complementary skills and services that would otherwise be unaffordable to small businesses. Therefore, in the same complex of buildings, one finds resource centres, NGO offices, empowerment groups mixed with entrepreneurs and rural development projects.
The ZCBF offers financial services and other support services to all these tenants at a subsidised rate. It is almost a one-stop-shop for empowerment.
The park plays host to the Zululand Career and Lifeskills Learning Centre, the University of Zululand Science Centre, the Zululand Sports Training and Resource Centre, the Alusaf Visitors’ Centre and the Business Advice Centre.
Venues and training rooms are also rented out for courses, conventions, workshops and functions.
On most days the park is a hive of activity. Apart from the skills centres that deal with adult education, vocational training and additional education, there is a library of portable science kits that teachers from local schools can borrow to supplement their resources.
Another library contains educational material for teachers and students. Damelin College and Technicon Natal have satellite campuses here, and there is a technical training workshop and a welding school. There’s a business advice centre, a craft training centre and a hydroponic farming project turning out bushels of tomatoes.
There is also a plan to establish a cluster of mini-factories, serviced by a central foundry, that will produce aluminium products.
The projects at the community park fall into three categories. There are those that are completely independent and merely rent office space and facilities from the park. There are the semi-independent occupants that are independently managed but still rely on the ZCBF for consultation and advice. And then there are the projects that are managed and administered by ZCBF project managers.
What is remarkable about the community park is that it is completely sustainable, making enough income from rentals and services to be able to cover its overheads. The annual Zululand Expo, held at the community park venue, brings in enough income to fill the gaps.
The ZCBF does not fund projects. Rather, it helps projects to find funding and offers a range of services at very low cost. It administers funding for NGOs and provides bookkeeping services and financial advice for small businesses.
Because of its credibility and access, the ZCBF has also been tasked with administering the social-responsibility spending of various large companies. This funding can then be effectively used in projects guided by the ZCBF.
Who would have thought 10 years ago that a few elements as diverse as a cyclone and a flood, political violence, an abandoned construction village, a private poverty-relief programme and a few far-thinking individuals would combine to create such a unique phenomenon.