Team Tjakastad, Trigger for a Revolution of Care

Never heard of the place until few months ago, the place is in the outskirt of Mpumalanga Province 50 km to Swaziland border. I am still to find a person who knew where the place was prior to Kwanda series. When we first went there the agent booked us in Barberton 80 km away because she could not picture the place.

When a number of people I work with would call and I would say I am in Tjakastad often they would think I am out of the country. When I called banks looking for their nearest branch, they would refer me to Nelspruit 130 km away.


but in the past 6 months, I have witnessed:
1. Humility - Team Tjakastad is made up of mostly educated but very humble people, most younger people have matric and 50% of young people have further education qualification. But they are very humble.

2. Passion for community development - The team is full of people who are involved in a number of things. We have a chair person of a school governing body, ANC branch chairperson, former converner of community enterprises, head of home based care team, head of drop in centre where they feed children after school. We have ground breakers for Love life. We have facilitators for HIV/AIDS and health education. All these people were volunteers even before Kwanda.

3. Commitment - When cameras left the community, most of us thought that there will be less activities, but the opposite happened in Tjakastad. People work harder now than they did before. Everything that happens in Tjakastad is now seen as Kwanda, Community works is Kwanda, and I believe there is a lot more Kwanda to come.

4. Robust - The team is not afraid to confront issues and deal with them head on.

5. Impact - Been approached by a lot of people saying, how better Tjakastad have been since Kwanda started.

Team Tjakastad, am honoured to be playing a small part in your revolution..