About Action For Ingwavuma:
our work, our partnerships, our background.
Our aim is to provide relief and assistance to people in need
particularly families impacted by HIV, malnutrition and poverty, with special focus upon a women’s self-help group.
We provide help by fundraising through donations and events in the UK.
We also purchase and sell the embroidery products from Fancy Stitch self-help women’s group, and beaded products from a South African artist.
We are partnered with two local non-profit organisations (NPO’s) in South Africa, through which the majority of our help is channelled. We work closely with the Fancy Stitch group and Zisize, an educational children’s charity, to provide relief and assistance for the needy in the community. Both have centres in Ingwavuma.
The Fancy Stitch group is a self-help initiative for women living in and around Ingwavuma, generating income and developing skills. Fancy Stitch started with twenty seven members in September 2001 and has now grown to include more than two hundred women.
Fancy Stitch produces beautiful hand-embroidered and beaded products which they sell within South Africa and internationally.
This group is vitally important for the women who belong to it. The women are organised into satellite groups who live in a wide area, with access being especially difficult in the mountainous regions. They work at home and then submit their embroidery at meetings where they are paid, briefed about new orders, obtain embroidery supplies and generally enjoy a get-together with fellow stitchers.
The products are assembled at the centre of Fancy Stitch in Ingwavuma and sent out from there to customers.
The Fancy Stitch women receive an income, training, develop artistic talent, companionship, leadership and a sense of belonging. Support is given to those with HIV/Aids.
This organisation is constantly striving to be a successful business. This is not easy and they face many difficulties but, when given a chance, they always impress with their courage and hard work.
Action for Ingwavuma maintains close connection with the management team in Fancy Stitch, with regular (often daily) contact. Personal relationships have grown over recent years, and visits to Ingwavuma have reinforced these contacts.
Zisize - The Heaton Lee Memorial Trust is a registered UK charity, based in South Wales. Zisize means 'help yourself'.
As a non-profit organisation (NPO) recognised by the government of South Africa, its aims are to promote and advance educational standards and alleviate poverty in rural areas, but more particularly in KwaZuluNatal, so to provide support which will result in a brighter future for the children.
Its main base is close to Ingwavuma and its work extends widely beyond the town into the poorest and least accessible areas of the country.
It is the experience of Action for Ingwavuma that Zisize has an enormous impact on the children’s lives. Zisize oversees schools and crèches covering a vast area. They run a mentoring programme for the teachers to maintain standards in schools. The main centre has a large crèche, library and facilities for the children to do homework.
Zisize also runs a feeding programme for the most needy children, sustained through the holidays and at weekends. They also run the orphanage.
We have worked closely with Zisize in Ingwavuma for many years. Much of our help is channelled through this organisation and we have developed a friendly and effective working relationship which we value very much.
As self-funded volunteers, our income from fund raising goes directly to the Ingwavuma community. In such a small community, a relatively small donation will go a long way.
How we use the money raised:
WATER TANKS
Purchase and install water tanks for individual households in the communities
Fund borehole drilling
Self help
Support over 200 women in self-help group
SCHOOL UNIFORMS
Provide uniforms for orphans
ORPHAN SUPPORT
Support for orphans and families caring for them
FOOD
Provide food parcels
EDUCATION SPONSORSHIP
Sponsor young people through education
EYECARE
Provide ophthalmic instruments to local doctors
GARDENS
Establish and support community gardens
TOILETS
Install toilets for schools and orphanages
EQUIPMENT
Provide equipment for orphanages
Ingwavuma
The town of Ingwavuma is located in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. This is one of the nine provinces which make up the country. The town falls within the Jozini administrative area of the Umkhanyakude District, which covers almost 5,000 square miles - slightly smaller than the county of Yorkshire.
The majority of the population speak IsiZulu. Umkhanyakude is named after the yellow-barked fever tree, literally meaning “seen from afar”.
Ingwavuma is in the Lebombo mountain range, at 2,300 feet above sea level. The small town has a number of schools, a hospital and a group of shops. The entire area is rural however, with small clusters of homesteads. The facilities and services remain compromised by lack of funds.
Although Umkhanyakude contains many areas of outstanding natural beauty such as the World Heritage Site known as iSimangaliso Wetland Park, together with several game parks, it is one of the two most deprived Districts in South Africa according to the District Health Barometer.
“Deprivation” is defined as a combination of indicators including unemployment rates, access to piped water and electricity, female-headed households with high numbers of children and low education levels, according to the Health Systems Trust which produces the Barometer.
The Jozini area is among the most deprived regions in the uMkhanyakude District.
“A DAY IN THE LIFE - To illustrate just how difficult life is in the area a mother has described for us the daily challenges she faces.”
Click here to read her story.
Centred upon Ingwavuma, our charity works throughout the surrounding rural areas within the Jozini district. In these regions only 2% of households have piped water and 5% of households are supplied with electricity. Inadequate access to food and nutrition is prevalent across the community.
People survive through migrant labour, subsistence farming and government grants, often shared among entire households. Poverty is deeply rooted, and social problems like alcoholism and teenage pregnancy are widespread.
The Ingwavuma area has been decimated by HIV/AIDS since the 1990’s. Desperately, HIV infection rates among young women keep rising. The costs of HIV, the numerous funerals, and caring for children orphaned by AIDS drain scarce household resources, deepening poverty further.
The women carry an enormous burden of caring for not just their children, but their nieces, nephews and grandchildren who usually have been orphaned as the result of HIV/AIDS. They have become sole-providers and carers with very little employment and few income-generating opportunities.
Up-to-date health information is not available and data quality represents a serious challenge, but in 2011, the prevalence of HIV in KwaZulu-Natal was the highest in the country, with seven of the ten KwaZulu-Natal districts having rates over 30%.
In recent years, 50% of deaths have been attributed to HIV/AIDS. While antiretroviral treatment is now available through the government, there are already thousands of orphans who require support. The majority of these are cared for by their extended family with support from churches, non-government organisations (NGO’s) and the local government.
With immune systems compromised by the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, an emerging threat to the population is that of Multidrug-resistant Tuberculosis (MDR TB). The most recent study available found that the incidence rate for MDR TB in KwaZulu-Natal was among the highest globally. In the six years covered by the study, the level of MDR TB increased more than ten-fold.
Our Charity's History
In 2005 Action for Ingwavuma (AFI) started when a group of women, here in the UK, identified great need in the remote community of Ingwavuma in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, close to the borders of Mozambique and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland).
After a visit they recognised that this community, ravaged by HIV-Aids and poverty, had great potential but needed help from outside their area.
Since that time this same group of volunteers has worked through trusted South African partners, resident in Ingwavuma, to fund numerous projects. Community gardens have been established, run by hardworking groups of women; toilets, boreholes and water tanks have improved the infrastructure of numerous schools; and extensive help has been given to the self-help women’s group. Water tanks now help many families at their homes, orphans go proudly to school in their uniforms, children have been sponsored and vehicles bought for our partners to access the remotest areas.
In all of this AFI has been supported in its work by family, friends and organisations from all parts of the UK. Presentations and sales have been held in private homes, at the meetings of Womens Institute groups, in churches and community centres.
Since we started we have received significant grants from Comic Relief, Diageo Foundation, SDL, Wickland Westcott (now part of New Street Consulting Group), Consort Ltd., Roll Out The Barrel (ROTB) Trust, and by Fego Coffee Shop in Gerrards Cross.
Supporters have run and cycled many hard miles for the charity. Our work has taken us from building a hut in the grounds of Hampton Court, to wonderful exhibitions of four hundred works of art from the women’s group at the School Of African and Oriental Studies in London, to the hard reality of life in Ingwavuma.
In 2015 AFI became a British registered charity and now continues under the hard-working guidance of the Trustees to continue to support the people of Ingwavuma. Everyone in the UK who works for AFI is a volunteer who pays all their own expenses, and all donations are used for the work in Ingwavuma. Read more about our Trustees and our plans to sustain the charity here
