About

Isipho sprang from the determination of then-13-year-old Miranda Lynch to do everything possible to improve the life of two-year–old Amahle Zuma, and other children in iNzinga. Miranda and Amahle met in the summer of 2008 when Miranda and her father, Tom, were in South Africa for vacation and decided to spend one week volunteering. They spent that week living in the remote village of iNzinga, living with the Zuma family, planting potatoes in communal gardens and working in schools.

In the following year, Isipho has trained 23 residents of Nzinga in sustenance gardening through their partnership with Cedara College of Agriculture. 18 of those residents are women. Isipho purchased the fencing, tools, and starter seeds for 500 square meters of community gardens and more than 30 individual family gardens, all plowed, planted, and tended by local residents. We are also providing ongoing gardening training so gardeners learn how to manage their crops throughout the entire season.

Isipho also provided several thousand dollars worth of education materials and teacher training to help improve the literacy and graduation rates in the village.

You can help by raising awareness of the extreme income inequality in South Africa, now a G20 nation, but one with the highest income inequality in the world. More than 60% of the population lives on less than $2/day. Many of have land around them that would allow them to provide for themselves as they did for centuries prior to Apartheid.