THIS Women’s Month, the Church Alliance for Social Transformation (CAST) NPO honours S’duduzile ‘S’du’ Nzimande for her work in the church and the community.
Nzimande is a member of a local church in KwaNdengezi, and CAST said her story is an inspiration as she has grown and flourished in her ministry since her church partnered with the organisation two years ago.
She is also part of the church justice team. CAST empowered their 14 partner churches in KwaZulu-Natal to launch Justice Teams in 2023.
Rolan Gulston, CAST communications officer, said the justice teams are made up of church members leading others towards peace and justice in response to various injustices that are present in their community.
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“Sdu and her fellow Justice Team members, led by Pastor Strydom Msomi, had the opportunity to attend CAST’s Ibandla Malivuke Conference last year. This two-day conference gathers church leaders, NPO leaders, mums, dads, students, community members, business people and the like from across Durban and KZN to spend some time thinking about how our faith interacts with the world around us and the many social issues we witness,” said Gulston.
Nzimande highlighted that the purpose of the conference is to be an oasis in the wilderness; for many people working in the justice and social development space, the work is lonely, unrelenting and exhausting.
“Ibandla Malivuke is a time of refreshing for our guests and provides an important networking opportunity to gather, share ideas, build partnerships for future work, share learning and gain much-needed expertise,” she said.
Nzimande said the conference was an eye-opener.
“Sometimes, you hear about issues you know about already, but you just don’t know how to tackle them, or you don’t feel like it’s any of your business, so you just take care of your own problems. My spirit got stirred when I actually had to face [the issues] – that was the most uncomfortable part – to look deep into them and see where we have gone wrong as a society – our contributions to them and what we can change. That caught my attention.”
Nzimande shared that they got to meet Kerry and Dan Wiens from Inundo Development whom they are still in partnership with till this day.
“It was great. We wanted to know more about the sustainable agriculture principles from Farming God’s Way and how we can use that to fight hunger and poverty.”
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Following this, Nzimande said the team attended a training with the organisation to learn the basics.
“Part of our goals as a church is for our community to not just see the building of a church but to feel God’s footprint by us actually going into the community and teaching them these things and showing them love.”
“We had our first harvest and were so excited. We took it back to the church. We share the food with the grannies and those who are underprivileged first. We didn’t sell anything. We will start selling from our second harvest.”
CAST extended an invite to the Highway community to Ibandla Malivuke 2024, taking place on September 13 and 14 at Glenridge Church at the Durban Station Complex.
“This is also a great opportunity to serve by volunteering for the event, sponsoring tickets or items for the conference and joining a prayer group. Email info@cast.org.za for enquiries or visit CAST’s website at www.cast.org.za for more details,” said Gulston.
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