Khula = to grow

Avery Deboer
Dec 1, 2016
2 min read

Children of the Khula village.

Today we visited the traditional Zulu village of Khula. This place has an inspiring history and we were fortunate to spend a day immersed in it. The people of this village once lived in the nearby Duku Duku forest but one day the government asked if they would relocate so that they could preserve the unique ecosystems and species that also lived there. The chief of these people negotiated a deal with the government so that when they relocated they would have help building schools, roads, community centres and houses but when they arrived at their new home they were greeted with none of this.

This Khula woman supports seven people in her home thanks to the opportunity of becoming a treepeneaur.

The community and its chief fought hard to get the things they were promised but nothing seemed to work. One day Dr. Andrew Ventura, the now CEO of Wildlands became involved with the chief to help create sustainable change in the community. Since this time Wildlands have helped implement a very successful program called treepeneurs where villagers grow seedlings into trees for able a year and then they trade them for useful items such as solar hot water tanks, bikes and other necessary goods. Many of these community members have used this opportunity, with the help of Wildlands to start their own businesses. 80% of these entrepreneurs are woman and many of them have used the money they make from their businesses to send their children and grandchildren to university. This is their way of changing the paradigm of their poverty stricken environment and creating opportunity for the future generations of their community.

Our German friend brought presents for the children of the village.

After we spent some time meeting the inspiring villagers of Khula we were very fortunate to experience the traditional Zulu way of life through clothing, song and dance . I will let the photos speak to this amazing part of our day.