By: Lungani Gumede
UMLAZI TOWNSHIP, SOUTH AFRICA: Growing up in a rural village has many advantages and some of society’s favorite stories involve a dusty footed hero making it big in the city.
One of the biggest advantages of living in a rural setting is being thrust into the natural environment early on in ones life.
The surrounding forests, fields and rivers are a playground for children and, like other children, Dumisani Msweli quickly became infatuated with this environment.
He used to live with his grandmother in rural Umbumbulu, thirty minutes away from where Kwa-Zulu Natal’s coast meets the Indian Ocean.
However, Dumisani moved to be with his mother and stepfather in Umlazi township, the third largest township in South Africa, just outside of Durban.
Umlazi was one of them.
A view of Umlazi. Photo Credit: Lungani Gumede
With a population of close to 405,000 in an area that is 47.46km squared (8,500 people per square kilometre) the township is compacted and land that is supposed to fit one family, has had to accommodate four or five houses on one plot.
So any arable land would have been converted into space for dwellings.
However, Dumisani always felt love for plants and trees and never forgot his passion.
After high school, Dumisani went to University and graduated with a degree in Nutrition, but that was not his passion.
“One of my mentors advised me to follow my passion,” Dumisani said in an interview with RISE NEWS.
Which is what he did by going back to school. He received a National Diploma in Horticulture from the Durban University of Technology.
Dumisani then says he “saw a need and an opportunity in the township,” a need for work, cheap products and a cleaner environment.
This is how Ibala Organics was born.
Ibala means “backyard” or “garden” in isiZulu and Dumisani quickly realized that other amabala or “openspace” that belonged to the people in the community were the key to creating a sustainable, consistently fruitful business for the township of Umlazi.
Dumisani’s idea was to rent and buy land from inside the community, such as gardens, backyards and schoolyards and plant tropical and subtropical fruits and then sell those fruits to supermarkets and fruit processors.
By shortening and localizing his supply chain, Dumisani says there will be no need for expensive refrigeration or transportation.
The initiative will sell its fruits (pun intended) to fruit processors and supermarkets, which means that the gardens will need to provide its wares regularly and on time and the more “amabala” they have, the better.
Ibala already has a square kilometre of household backyard space that it has acquired and processed and a further 1.5 kilometre squared space from schoolyards that are being cultivated for the planting of vegetables in April.
Space is at a premium in Umlazi. Photo Credit: Lungani Gumede
However, Dumisani says he is always on the lookout and constantly negotiating for more spaces.
Ibala Organics aims to provide communities with a very valuable second income, without actually having to toil the land.
Dumisani hires people from the community to work with him and is adamant that he wants to give opportunities to people who just left school with the right qualifications, over eight million people are unemployed in South Africa and university-leaving degree-bearing young people are not being hired.
Besides the good that Ibala Organics will do for the economies of the communities it operates in, Dumisani says “it is our vision to plant the value of tree’s in people’s lives.”
Dumisani wants to ensure that the people who will be participating in Ibala Organics gain a love for the plants and trees that he will be planting.
Getting buy-in from the community was not a problem for Dumisani, because he started close to home – on his own street.
Once he had proven his model to those close to home, it was easier to get support from neighboring communities.
The drought that has hit South Africa has not severely impacted on Ibala’s crop of tropical and subtropical fruit, such as Mangoes,paw paw, avocado, banana, granadilla, citrus fruit and litchi and in April they hope to add vegetables to the offering.
Dumisani Msweli. Photo Credit: Lungani Gumede
Ibala Organics will soon be completely operational and the gardens of Umlazi will be home to trees and plants with heavy-hanging branches bearing fruit and vegetables.
Perhaps Ibala Organics and Dumisani will create a wave across the 400,000 people strong township that encourages local products and unity in the community.
A hand-in-hand initiative for the people, by the people.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us!
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Cover Photo Credit: Red Bull/ Screengrab
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Miss Puerto Rico Suspended Indefinitely For Anti-Muslim Comments
Looks like Miss Puerto Rico winner Destiny Vélez’s comments against Muslims have caught up with her as she has been indefinitely suspended from her role by the island’s official Miss America organization. Just last Thursday, Veléz engaged on a Twitter dialogue attacking Muslims and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore after he shared a photo of him standing… Read More
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Why Miley Cyrus Is America
“Miley Cyrus represents everything that is wrong with America.”
This is a sentence you have probably heard or even spoken yourself. But the people who believe this believe it for the wrong reasons.
Frequent marijuana use is not what is wrong with America. Nude concerts are not what is wrong with America. Obscene gestures are not what is wrong with America.
What is wrong with America is the defensive attitude that comes out when someone asks it to shut up for five minutes and let marginalized individuals speak for themselves.
In the past, Miley has called herself “empowering to women,” and I think deep down she does want to empower and to see a more accepting world, just as deep down America wants to live up to its reputation as the land of the free.
But the problem with Miley’s mission, and America’s, lies within her belief that she can fix the world’s intolerance on her terms, without actually listening to those she is attempting to empower.
Miley has spent the last three years not giving a single fuck. It started in 2012 when she chopped off her long brunette locks and began rocking a platinum pixie cut, and has since escalated into everything from excessive tongue use to posing nude for Candy magazine.
She has received equal parts hate and love for her lack of concern with public opinion on her looks, attitude and behavior.
Photo Credit Credit: Clint Catalyst/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
Not giving a fuck can be empowering. In a time where government spying and posting every thought online for 1,000 of your friends to analyze is considered the norm, “worrying about yourself” is a foreign concept. So when you choose not to let unfair judgment of your character affect how you live your life, that is, without a doubt, empowering.
But there is such a thing as fair judgment, something Miley has often faced, particularly for her appropriation of POC culture and her use of the LGBTQ+ community as a prop for her brand.
Last summer, when Nicki Minaj called out the MTV Video Music Awards on Twitter for their lack of recognition for her record-breaking Anaconda video, as compared with their celebration of Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood video, Swift fired back at Minaj for “pit[ting] women against each other.”
When Minaj – and the rest of Twitter — explained to Swift that this wasn’t about bringing her down, it was about dismantling a system stacked against people of color, the pop star issued an apology and admitted that she misunderstood. It was not a perfect example of accountability for problematic behavior, but it was progress.
Miley, on the other hand, when asked about the “beef” between the two, accused Nicki Minaj of making “[the issue] about [her]self,” and suggested that next time the artist approach race issues “with love” to get her point across.
This is America’s problem. Too many people claim to empower, when what they are really doing is overpowering.
Rather than listen to a woman who also faces criticism for everything from obscenity to sexuality, Miley, a self-proclaimed feminist, decided to speak over Minaj and tell her how to best handle the issues she is facing. How can one claim to be empowering while refusing to uplift the voices of those they want to empower?
Empowering a group of people means embracing and caring about both the positive and negative parts of their culture. It means for every time you twerk with your friends in the club, you should be listening to a woman of color talk about the way she is fetishized. For every funny Grindr story you listen to from your gay friend, you should be educating yourself on bi-erasure.
And for every joint you smoke, you should be reading the statistics on imprisonment rates for minor drug offenses and how this practice serves as a systemic genocide of young men of color.
This is America’s problem. Too many people claim to empower, when what they are really doing is overpowering. So next time you see Miley on your TV or computer screen and you ask yourself “What the hell is she doing?” know that she is doing exactly what America is doing: bringing marginalized communities onto her platform, only to cut their mics.
Cover Photo Credit: JPAvocat/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Tennessee College Wins Right to Ban LGBT Students, Unwed Mothers
By Charles Diringer Dunst
@cddunstCarson-Newman University is a four year, liberal arts Southern Baptist college in Jefferson City, Tennessee.
It is now also a college that has legally won the right to discriminate, based on sexual orientation and unfair, old-fashioned gendered expectations of women.
The university, at the behest of their attorney, applied for and received a Title IX exemption waiver, allowing them to bypass federal non-discrimination laws.
Title IX is a federal law which directly prohibits discrimination based on sex in higher education.
The law allows for any school “controlled by a religious organization” to seek an exemption if complying “would not be consistent with the religious tenants of such organization.”
Carson-Newman’s exemption allows the college to reject those who live in conflict with its interpretation of Christianity. This includes LGBT peoples, unwed mothers, women who have had abortions, and non-married women who may be pregnant.
The college has clarified that their usage of the waiver is not discriminatory, as it intends to “further establish our identity as a religious school.”
University president Dr. Randall O’Brien requested the exemption in a letter addressed to the federal government in May 2015.
“This is who we are as a Christian university,” he told CBS affiliate WVLT on Monday. “These are our religious principles, and in a changing world, we would like to reaffirm that this is who we are and who we intend to be.”
The university has stated that their reception of the waiver will not affect its admissions policies, at least not in the upcoming year.
When pressed by a local news tv station, President O’Brien paradoxically stated that the exemption would not lead the university to “discriminate against or students or any student applying to Carson-Newman.”
WATCH: Local TV story about Carson-Newman University Title IX waiver
The college has so far been unable to clarify exactly how they intend to utilize the waiver. It is not even clear why the university wanted to waiver in the first place, unless they intended to use it.
“You’re the president,” WVLT’s Lauren Davis noted. “You’re not going to file something unless you understand it.”
President O’Brien said in response to Davis’ assertion that the exemption would allow the school to “strengthen our position in relation to First Amendment rights. I don’t really know why something would be necessary beyond that.”
Despite their reception of the waiver, its usage is something which the university has clearly defined.
Jared Champion, Carson-Newman Class of 2003, told The Knoxville News-Sentinel that he was “absolutely humiliated by the news.”
Champion said that he believes that the exemption will impact the value of his degree as he continues his career as a college professor.
“As I move forward and put in job applications, and the like, I’m going to have to put in an addendum . . . to let them know that the values that Carson-Newman now represents are not mine,” Champion said.
The university’s attorney, Jim Guenther, has recommended the same exemption as a prudent course of action for several other Christian colleges.
Cover Photo Credit: Carson-Newman University/ Facebook
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