Mautse, South Africa — When heavy rains came down on Mautse in the winter of 2018, water poured through cracks and holes of many of the houses that were constructed from wood and sheets of corrugated iron.

Many of the elderly residents of the black township, which is located in the Free State, across the road from the white farming and arts community of Rosendal, could not afford to fix the damages to their zinc shacks. 

Lerato Mosala, a Mautse native and community leader, witnessed the destruction as he walked around parts of the township that have informal structures. Locals still refer to these homes and settlements as “squatter camps.”

“I checked to see which [shacks] aren’t in good condition,” Mosala said. “I approached the people living in them and asked about the condition and the difficulties. From there I asked their permission to help.”   

Across the road in Rosendal, Frik de Jager, owner of Benjamin’s restaurant, learned of the destroyed homes from his manager,  Mmakatleho Maseko. She told him that her neighbor’s house, inhabited by six people, including a grandmother, had been flooded. 

“[Maseko] came to me last winter in tears and she said the nkgono (granny), opposite her lives in this shack, and the shack is flooded,” de Jager said. “So I went to have a look that very day, and I decided we need to do something.” 

Maseko said she told de Jager about her neighbors because every time it rained, their house flooded. 

“I always feel sorry for them,” Maseko said. “I decided to say something with the hope that [de Jager] was going to do something.” 

In October of that year, de Jager started Project Nkgono, which means “grandmother” in Sotho, the language of the indigenous people of the area. The mission of the project is to help grandmothers in Mautse who cannot afford to repair damage to their homes. 

De Jager sought out community leaders in Mautse to work with and said Mosala stood out to him as someone who could run the project. 

“He’s got integrity, and he cares about the community,” de Jager said. “He really cares about people, so that’s what stood out about Lerato.”

After attending primary and secondary school in Mautse, Mosala left in 1999 to attend university on the Western Cape. After 17 years away, he decided to move back home permanently in 2016. Upon his return, he realized that townships like Mautse, created by the apartheid government decades ago, still struggle to recover from the policies of racial segregation, including poor housing conditions and a lack of government assistance. 

“Much has changed, but still much has to change,” Mosala said. “We are getting there slowly. We are far from big cities like Johannesburg, so things are taking a long time to change.”

Looking for a way to make a difference, Mosala decided Project Nkgono was one way he could impact his community. 

“I got involved with the project so I could help with the elderly,” Mosala said. “When I went to investigate I found that there wasn’t much of a foundation to build the shacks.”

De Jager’s ongoing role in the project is to help collect donations and materials to rebuild the damaged homes. In order to ensure Project Nkgono’s ability to create change in living conditions, donations are necessary. De Jager said he reaches out to community members, and even his own friends, to raise funds. Once the funding is acquired, de Jager said it is important to ask what kind of help people want, rather than assume their needs. 

“It’s very important for me to preserve the dignity and ask first,” de Jager said. “Going through a dialogue of saying, ‘What are your needs?’ and ‘Let’s see how we can meet your needs.’”

For his part, Mosala walks around the informal settlement parts of Mautse looking for potential families to assist. Asking to provide assistance is a philosophy that de Jager and Mosala share.  

“We want to find a family and say what we can do, and then ask if it would be okay to help,” Mosala said. 

Project Nkgono currently has five volunteers who construct and paint the shacks. The project can’t afford to pay workers, and without these volunteers there would be no one to repair or rebuild houses.

Ewmanuel Mofokeng, a Mautse native and project volunteer on break from university, said he plans to use the knowledge that he acquires at school to develop the community that he calls home. 

“When I finish my course I still want to create something that will help the people of this community, or these community members would benefit from it,” Mofokeng said.

Members of the community are grateful for the work that Project Nkgono is doing for the elderly, Mosala said. The most recently constructed shack belongs to Vuyiswa Adoons, a grandmother living in Mautse.

On a brisk winter day in late June, Adoons walked outside her reconstructed shack, freshly painted in a light yellow. Project Nkgono had added a third room onto the shack, where six people lived, including Vuyiswa, her two daughters and three young grandchildren.

“I am very, very happy,” Adoons said through a translator.

With her hands clasped against her chest, Adoons nodded her head in thanks and smiled. Mosala looked at the nkgono and reciprocated with a broad smile.