Baba Mchunu is No 1 in eyes of fellow Nkandla villagers
Teacher is intent on giving youth in impoverished area a chance to learn technical skills
NESTLED on the plains along a half-dry Mhlathuze River and facing the lush green hills northward is Nkungumathe, an impoverished rural village in Ward 1 of the Nkandla municipality in KwaZulu-Natal.
While President Jacob Zuma’s Ward 14 in Nxamalala, some 80km away, has benefited through generous government development, the residents of Nkungumathe regard Mthokozisi McDonald Mchunu, the founder of the Nkungumathe Youth Development Forum and a local primary school teacher, as their saviour.
Mchunu, whose first name means “one who brings joy”, took his passion for education to the entire community, with a vision to develop skills and empowerment in an area that does not even have a high school.
He shrugs off the praise locals heap upon him. Instead, he jokes about his second name, McDonald, saying that while he realises that the villagers are overjoyed about the opportunities the forum brings, he often wishes that he could bring them some “juicy burgers”.
Mchunu started the forum in 2003, primarily to alleviate poverty, develop skills and create an integrated community development strategy.
Born in the impoverished area where so many of his childhood friends were not able to study and gain employment, the young teacher realised that the only way of reversing people’s fortunes was by creating opportunities for growth.
Today the forum can lay claim to putting more than 400 young people into apprenticeships where they are acquiring skills as artisans such as welders, boilermakers and diesel mechanics. In addition, it has changed the lives of more than 450 adults who can now read and write because of its comprehensive literacy programme.
Mchunu realised that he could not achieve his objectives alone, so he petitioned dozens of organisations to partner with him or sponsor the forum. Thus far, several sector education and training authorities and government departments have come on board, as well as corporations including Transnet, Sasol, PetroSA and the Petroleum Agency South Africa, or Pasa.
“It has not been plain sailing. We have made numerous proposals and persuasions and sometimes we have been in limbo, but we never stopped pushing ourselves. In the end you have big corporates falling over themselves to be part of this project,” Mchunu says with a chuckle.
It is midday on a Monday when we catch up with Mchunu among a multitude of parents who have just said goodbye to 261 students going to the Free State for a three-year, on-the-job artisan training programme with the Local Government Seta as part of the National Skills Development Strategy 3 programme.
This is the third batch of students from the area to be sent on apprenticeships.
In 2014, Mchunu sent 100 artisan students to Hydra Arc in Secunda while others went to PetroSA in Cape Town.
Streaks of sweat — whether from the relief of sending off the students or the unrelenting heat — run down Mchunu’s face as he unbuttons his waistcoat and leads us into his office, a furnished container.
“I did not only want to end up teaching in a classroom; I wanted to uplift the entire commu- nity. I see a child and I see great potential,” he says.
“This forum is the voice of the community and intends ploughing back to the very same community that makes this area tick. During its formative years we encountered a lot of hurdles as this was something unheard of in this area. There were doubting Thomases.”
When Mchunu started out with a group of other equally passionate people, the forum did not even have a venue. They met at a primary school, then at a crèche. Transnet donated a few containers to be used as offices in 2009.
And in 2011, Sasol built them a brick and mortar structure.
By this time the forum’s profile had grown and through programmes offered at Nkungumathe it became easier to source funding from the National Skills Fund or Independent Development Trust, and to create partnerships with the Department of Higher Education.
“Other government departments like agriculture helped us buy a farm where we grow peaches and vegetables and farm livestock,” says Mchunu. “However, our core determination has always been skills development and to place graduates with companies and government departments where they get employment.
“This was not enough — what do you then do with many unskilled people still languishing in poverty in this area? Through the IDT and the Expanded Public Works Programme we now employ 250 people to do special environmental work like clearing alien plants,” says Mchunu.
Although the forum is based in Ward 1 of Nkandla, it has accepted people from surrounding districts and towns.
It has also changed the landscape, with partnerships with the Department of Transport and Department of Arts and Culture resulting in a good access road, a bridge and a stateof-the-art library.
And, Mchunu says proudly, by the end of the year the area will have its first high school. The school was first proposed in 1996, but because of lack of funding and co-ordination by the relevant departments it remained a pipe dream.
“We envisage that this secondary school will be built based on the needs of the job market,” says Mchunu. “While responding to social needs, it should also shape careers through a well-thought-out curriculum that includes vocational studies, maritime, agriculture, science and maths.”
Mchunu is already doing this through Saturday classes for children who are still at school. He has ensured that they receive extra tuition for their subjects, with the emphasis on maths and science.
Participating pupils are then eligible for bursaries once they pass matric.
Also, the Department of Higher Education is to build a technical vocational education and training college after Nkungumathe successfully applied for one. The college will be a satellite of the Umfolozi TVET.
Petro SA and Pasa have committed to building, respectively, a multipurpose centre and a computer and science laboratory by year-end.
Mchunu does all of this without forgetting that the children come from destitute families and he also works on social programmes such as a soup kitchen and an old people’s club.
“We do all of this to mobilise young people and to change mindsets.
“Once you are in one of our programmes, the world becomes your oyster,” he says.
Given Jama, a former Nkungumathe communications intern and the brains behind the organisation’s Nkungumathe Pulse newsletter, says Mchunu has made a great difference in his life and in those of others in the community.
“We marvel at what he does to assist this community under demanding circumstances.”
The sentiment is echoed by Jikile Khanyile, whose daughter Ntokozo will be the first one in the family to graduate with a technical skill. Ntokozo was among the 261 students who left for the Free State this week.
“I really do not know how we can thank Baba Mchunu. He’s a godsend and today we are able to put food on the table. I also work here at this new library.”
Mchunu says that while the world sees him as a hero, the actual heroes are those young people who will take up the baton and make Nkungumathe an even better place.
In the end you have big corporates falling over themselves to be part of this project