The REDI network depends on its champions

Max July is a married father of four who lives in Stutterheim. He is a member of the REDI working group and coordinates all REDI development operations in the Eastern Cape.

As a development consultant in Stutterheim, July works with a community of about 250 000 people. He plays an active role in the Stutterheim Development Foundation, which has been responsible for considerable development and improved infrastructure in the area over the past 12 years.

As a result, Stutterheim has become a case study in successful local economic development and July is increasingly called upon to facilitate planning and training in other small towns and rural communities.

He says his ultimate goal is to make sure that one day his community will be self-reliant.

Lusikisiki is a rural community of just more than 2 500 people. It has excellent soils and a climate conducive to agriculture. The Reverend Morriat Gabula’s interests and skills lie in assisting small-scale farmers in sustainable, organic farming projects.

Gabula aims to help the Lusikisiki community become self-reliant, with plenty of food and water available, good irrigation and electricity, community health and good schools and roads.

Wonga Tuta, who serves the 95 000-strong Mount Ayliff community, started working as a teacher in the early 1990s. This was when he realised he could be an asset to his community by playing an active role in its development. He went to the University of Durban-Westville to study development studies and graduated in 1997.

In the same year Tuta joined the Mount Ayliff Development Agency as founding CEO. The agency is an important local business service centre, driving small business development.

Tuta and other members of the community recently visited the United States and Italy to learn more about development. At the beginning of 2001, Tuta moved to the Mineworkers’ Development Agency in Umtata to serve as the regional business manager.

Limpopo

Shangaan Hill is a poverty-stricken village of about 12 000 residents on the outskirts of Bushbuckridge, near the border between Mpumalanga and Limpopo. Irene Moon, a single mother of four, has helped set up a crèche, establish poultry and community food gardens, and assist community members with a variety of self-help projects. Her aim is to build a community centre, which will create more jobs for the area.

Retired nurse Agnes Qwabe is a widower and the mother of four children, and an adopted Aids orphan. For the past 16 years, she has led community development in Ga-Mathabatha, a cluster of eight remote villages east of Polokwane with a combined population of 13 000. The area includes the notorious Bewaarkloof and Eqnep asbestos mines, which closed in 1976/77. Qwabe’s husband was one of the 50% of ex-miners who have died from asbestosis.

When the mines closed, many migrant workers from neighbouring countries were literally dumped on isolated rural communities such as Ga-Mathabatha. Through Qwabe’s work, local communities began supporting the migrant workers and today the ‘asbestos people”, as they are called, have become part of the Ga-Mathabatha community.

Phillip Mosoma was a teacher and school principal for many years before he retired and became a successful farmer. He is married and the father of five children, most of whom have now graduated from various universities.

Mosoma hails from Dingleydale, an agricultural irrigation scheme between Bushbuckridge and Acornhoek, one of the poorest communities in Limpopo, with approximately 3 000 residents.

Mosoma plays a vital role as chairperson of the Dingleydale Farmers’ Association, mobilising small-scale farmers around market-driven crop production, vegetables and stock farming.

He has also been involved in community development since 1974, helping people to help themselves.

Clarah Masinga, a single, unemployed mother of five, has acquired a reputation in community work through winning several community builder and development awards. She lives in a marginalised rural community comprising 20 villages, with a population of 90 000.

The area is characterised by great poverty and has no municipal services like water, electricity, sanitation or communications infrastructure.

One of Masinga’s achievements is the Kgautswane Community Development Centre, which has facilitated development of numerous crèches and set up care groups for elderly and mentally disabled people. Community self-help projects include poultry, agriculture and craft manufacture.

Elsie Motubatse, a divorced mother of five, lives and works in a 90 000-strong community where unemployment runs at 82%. This long-neglected rural area has a great need for development.

Motubatse is the principal of a local school and plays a vital role in facilitating local development. She is well connected with the public sector and uses this network to drive development for the region.

Mpumalanga

Michael Ncongwane has worked as a trainer for 25 years in several community organisations. He is a member of the REDI working group and coordinates all REDI development operations in Limpopo and Mpumalanga.

He is also the operational manager of the Beehive Enterprise Development Centre and Micro Finance Institute. His community of 300 000 includes the small towns of Mashi- shing, Burgersfort and Steelpoort. He provides business skills training, counselling, advice and support to people who have been marginalised through retrenchment, unemployment and poverty.

A retired teacher, Figness Mashele is now a farmer and coordinates the development of small-scale farmers in his district. He is an executive member of the National African Farmers Union and the Mpumalanga African Farmers Union.

He is responsible for a community of about 80 000 people. This poverty-stricken area has a large number of small-scale sugar cane farmers. Mashele has been the primary agent in driving and obtaining support for these small-scale farmers.

He has established a local business service centre called Inhlava EDC, which serves the villages of Mzinti, Piva, Mdladla, Kamhlushwa, Ntunda and Block A, all within the Malelane municipal boundary.

Free State

Zanele Sithole is a qualified trainer in economic and management sciences. He also has a number of qualifications in the development of small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs).

He is self-employed and is the CEO of MKZ Business Development Services, a provider of business advisory services, mentorship and business financing. He is a member of the Institute of Business Advisers and serves as a mentor on both Khula’s Thuso and the Banking Council of South Africa’s Sizanani mentorship schemes.

The area he covers for REDI in the eastern Free State is home to more than 900 000 people. He is a key local development facilitator, focusing on basic business management development, youth entrepreneurship and business financing. He has a strong network of private and public-sector stakeholders (in SMME development) both locally and internationally.

KwaZulu-Natal

A married father of three, Msongi Tembe hails from Maputoland in northern KwaZulu-Natal, a community of about 300 000. He established and is director of the Maputoland Development and Information Centre, which also provides small business support to local entrepreneurs, a position that he has held since 1990. The area Tembe operates in has been declared a spatial development initiative, with great prospects for growth. He is a member of the REDI working group and coordinates all REDI development activities in his region of Maputoland.

A married father of two, Cyprian Khuzwayo works out of Richard’s Bay. He is employed by Richard’s Bay Minerals and, until recently, operated as a small business development supervisor, trainer and counsellor within the Richard’s Bay Business Advice Centre. His work covers the four small towns of Enseleni, Hlabisi, Eshowe and Mtunzini, which together are home to 193 794 people. He has extensive experience in credit unions and has initiated several himself. Khuzwayo is also a member of the REDI working group and coordinates all REDI development activities in his region.

Gideon Cele, a father of six, grew up in a rural area near Port Shepstone. He became a teacher in 1979, and eventually became a school principal. He decided to go back to university and did a three-year diploma in rural resource management from 1994 to 1996. His community in Eshowe/Gingindlovu has a population of 37 000. He is employed in Richard’s Bay by a wood pulp mill, where he manages and develops an out-growers scheme, whereby local community members are given ownership of and accountability for tracts of planted timber.

Cele hopes to create a resource centre concentrating on hands-on training that would serve seven areas. The centre would focus on poverty alleviation through agriculture, literacy, health and tourism.

Francis Mthembu works in the Mazala sub-area of Ophondweni at Mtubatuba in northern KwaZulu- Natal. He holds several qualifications and is an experienced commercial analyst, small business development consultant and mentor to local business folk. Mtubatuba is a vast area, but has only one hospital and five clinics. The Ophondweni area has a population of 297 000 people. Mthembu plays an important role facilitating development opportunities.

Jerry Thabede developed a love for agriculture through his father, who was a farmer. This inspired him to become an agricultural adviser. Thabede is a married father of four, who works for Richard’s Bay Minerals as a community development officer specialising in agricultural projects. He serves the communities of Umbonambi and Sokhulu, near Richard’s Bay, which have a combined population of 40 000. Through the local mines the people of the area have been able to extract minerals from their lands which have helped fund education and health programmes, small businesses and rural development.

Thabede wants to help more people become self-reliant by starting their own businesses.

Western Cape

Angelina Zenani hails from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape. In 1975 she moved to Cape Town, where she raised five children single-handedly. She is a tireless champion of the 9 000-strong community of New Crossroads. Zenani embarked on community gardening, arts and crafts, and educational initiatives. Her pre-school and after-school projects give working parents peace of mind. She also works with street children. Thanks to her annual community clean-up campaigns, during which she mobilises up to 3 000 local residents, Zenani has been acknowledged as a key local facilitator of development in the area.

Qualified maths teacher Benji Fray, who works at the University of the Western Cape, was born in the small town of Franschhoek but now lives in Kuils River. This married mother of two decided to adopt her hometown as her community project as she has better access to to important resources than members of her 12 000-strong birth community. She initiated the Franschhoek Live Craft Centre and is involved in the Franschhoek Community and Land Restoration Association, which mobilises and supports people who were forcibly removed under the Group Areas Act.