"We have just come back from the village and on the way there we bumped into David carrying fruit, veggies and water on his trailer. He says that he has managed to put two 50kg packets of cement on the trailer. That is 100 kg that he has transported successfully. His little transport business is really going well and he says that he makes about R80 a day from transporting and selling things! He says that Christmas is going to be good this year as he will be able to buy a sheep! We have put Peter's mobile number on the trailer and we are getting so many calls to make trailers that we have to start looking into make a few soon."

It really is fantastic to see the impact that the bikes have make in the community!"
 
Children are riding bikes school and playing with their bikes in the afternoons. Bike repair skills are being provided to the community and people are being employed. 

The community would like to develop bicycle tours for tourists. For this they need assistance in small business skills, tourism itineraries and advice on how to promote themselves.

Context

The history of the Ndebele village of Mapoch's  helps to explain why there is so much need in so many different aspects of  the communities lives. The original community of The Ndbele Village 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.
This project works with the surrounding community as well as the Ndebele village of Mapoch who act as your hosts.