Fostering ubuntu in Boland
Paarl-based philanthropist, Princess Gcwalisile Cynthia Zulu-Kabanyane, received the Inyathelo Award for Community Philanthropy, at the annual gala banquet and ceremony held last week at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town.
The Inyathelo Philanthropy Awards were established in 2007 by the South African Institute for Advancement, “to acknowledge, celebrate and profile the full spectrum of diversity in South African philanthropic giving”.
Those who commit their personal resources towards social and economic development are nominated in various categories including Youth in Philanthropy; Community Philanthropy; Lifetime Philanthropy; Family Philanthropy; Philanthropy in Health; Philanthropy in the Arts; Support of Philanthropy in the Media and International Philanthropy to South Africa. There were 72 nominees this year.
Paarl and Wellington.
In 2009, she founded Qolothani Makhosikazi Social & Cultural Services, a Section 21 company providing various services to the poor, with women and girl-children as its central focus.
The charity (which means “work hard, women”) supports several sustainable township projects pioneered by the Princess, amongst others, the construction and donation (in March, 2011) of the St Ebenezer Methodist Church Community Kitchen, a day-care centre that feeds and caters for diverse social needs of the elderly;
Turn-Around Fresh Farmers - an agricultural entrepreneurship programme aimed at schoolchildren; the promotion of vegetable gardens in schools and the training of local women in the manufacture and marketing of beaded Zulu craft-work. Qolothani Makhosikazi also provides ongoing material support to several destitute families, including those households headed by children (bereaved through AIDS), and the elderly.
Dr Kabanyane-Zulu contributed R300 000 towards the Community Kitchen, and continues to pay the salaries of its four staff members. In addition, she uses her own transport to deliver items such as wheelchairs and food to those families under her care.
Growing and Preserving the Flowers of the Nation – a conference for girls and mothers held every year in Mbekweni, to promote leadership, financial management skills and a healthy lifestyle – is yet another initiative launched by the Kwazulu-Natal-born Princess.
Apart from promoting assorted traditional cultural activities amongst township youth (including Zulu song and dance), the indefatigable Dr Kabanyane-Zulu was instrumental in establishing the Crossing the Barriers Fun Walk, a burgeoning annual event held in Mbekweni, which aims to promote racial integration and harmony.
Inspired by the many humanitarian deeds of her highly-respected father, the late Prince Gideon Zulu, this dynamic, vivacious royal powerhouse regularly injects profits from her own publishing firm into Qolothani Makhosikazi Social & Cultural Services, and personally raises the additional funds needed to support the various charities, through events such as the Fun Walk[Unknown A1] .[Unknown A2]
Bayete dadewethu! The people of the Drakenstein Valley congratulate and salute you for enveloping your adoptive community in a caring, sharing, maternal embrace, thereby proving that the benevolent spirit of Ubuntu is alive and well, and living amongst us.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's interpretation of Ubuntu
“Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human ... A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they are less than who they are.”
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