people & places: responsible & ethical volunteering, tourism and travel

Virtually any and all abilities and skills will be welcomed in this rural and traditional community, as placements will be specifically designed to use whatever experience the volunteer brings.

education - for children and adults, IT, maths, basic literacy and numeracy
practical - DIY and construction, catering, arts and crafts
human resources practitioners to help with organisation, employee and community memebers development
marketing and promotion - helping the community guesthouse and local craftspeople to access tourist markets
catering and nutrition experts to train the local catering staff for the community lodge and guesthouse
IT, desk top publishing
Sports and arts and drama specialists to work with children and young adults

The project

The needs of this project are many and varied! The overall aims of the village elders, working closely with our local team, are to enable local people to gain the necessary education and skills to increase job opportunities - both within the wide-spread community and beyond.

Volunteer input so far has been as varied as you can imagine, from digging pit-latrines for the school, building an additional classroom for the pre-school and training teachers in best practise and educational play, to starting a local re-cycling project for adapting old donated bicycles for practical local use by adults and children.

Context

Mapoch's history helps to explain why there is so much need in so many different aspects of village life. The original community of Mapoch lived in an area called Wonderboom in Pretoria. They were living on a farm of a certain white farmer. This community was evicted from Pretoria during the early 1950’s. Apparently the farmer petitioned to the government of the time, to have the community removed from “his” land as tourists were travelling through “his” land to visit the community. Blacks were forcibly removed from traditional settlements to make way for white communities under Apartheid policies.

This community was first moved to “Vlakfontein”, where it was found that there was not enough land for their cattle to graze, no rivers nearby and no space suitable to hold the traditional initiation schools, amongst other factors. The community petitioned and more suitable land was found for them. The Mapoch Ndebele Community then moved to a farm at Klipgat under the authority of Mr Speelman Buhlakani Msiza (Chief) in 1953. The current village was built and life goes on as usual.

Mapoch Ndebele Village is a unique place as the community still live and practice their traditional way of life, i.e traditional ceremonies, Ndebele paintings, beadwork and Ndebele culture in general.

The three main families in the village are the: Msiza’s (direct family of the Chief), Buda’s (son in laws) and Skosana’s. Locally the village is known as “Mabhoko”, which is the name of one of the late Ndebele Kings, but the white people had difficulty in pronouncing Mabhoko and called it “Mapoch”.

The Ndebele people are descendants of the Nguni tribes (greater Zulu tribes) who split from the Zulus and moved up and settled around the greater Pretoria areas. Mzilizazi and King Cha Ndebele feature greatly in their history.

"From a twenty thousand feet perspective it was an incredible learning experience for me. Prior to Mapoch I had struggled with what role I should play in volunteerism. Warren Buffett had said the greatest good is for him to just do what he is best at (which is making money) and then just donate that money to charity as his contribution to society. I am certainly no Warren Buffett but his recommendation had motivated me to contribute money rather than time in the past. This fundamentally changed for me when I went to Mapoch and worked side by side with Pastor Peter. I came to the realization that building relationships is one of the major benefits of volunteer work, where being in the trenches with the locals removes differences of class or culture. By the end of our stay I viewed Pastor Peter as a friend and hope to maintain that friendship for many years to come."

The local partners we work with on this project won the prestigeous Chairmans Award at the Imvelo Awards for responsible tourism in 2007 for their work with the community of Mapoch.As well as awards for Best Economic Impact and best social Involvement Programme in the community.

£1235 for 4 weeks based on full board in a community homestay -

Additional weeks are costed at a sliding reducing rate
Please note these costs are correct to the best of our knowledge but can only be confirmed at time of booking due to changes in transport and taxes outside our control.

N.B. Costs based on a conversion rate of SAR 13.5 to 1.00GB£.
Please note twin room placements will be lower.

Included:
Full board in a local home - private room , airport transfers, full local orientation, social event, local SIM card, project & placement liaison

Your project donation will be used for the purchase of essential equipment for the project and to enable your work.

How your money is spent based on 4 weeks
SAR 7300 (£540) - direct costs in South Africa (airport transfers, accommodation and meals, orientation, information packs).
For an additional charge of 3530 Rand for 4 weeks (c. £265) volunteers can choose to stay in the community guest house with private ensuite facilities.
SAR 4160 (£310) - project management & supervision in South Africa
SAR 2259 (£170) - project donation in South Africa
215 GBP - recruitment, matching & project development in UK

Not included:
flights, insurance, visa costs, daily travel if needed, personal expenses such as phone calls, medical expenses, etc