Yondela resigns as InSite's Co-director

Yondela made a decision to step down from his role and involvement with InSite while we were in South Africa. As much as I was sad to see him leave, I understand his need to support his family and focus on the things he feels needs his attention.

Getting the bakery off the ground has been the primary focus of InSite in Enkanini, so we began looking for a replacement for someone to lead this initiative right away. Anna Mosio, who currently runs a day care, stepped up and expressed much enthusiasm. After speaking with her, it was clear that she is the person for this role. She has got plenty of women to run the day care, she knows how to bake and knows how to run a small business. We asked her if she could gather others for a meeting the next day who’d like to join in on the bakery project.

Phillipine and I were pleasantly surprised to have fifteen people show up! They set up agreements, and we all spoke about how they would work together. It is basically a shared bakery, where each person is self-employed. Anna would also oversee the remainder of the lights that Signify (formerly Phillips Foundation) would be installing. They were able to add an additional ten lights to the ten they replaced.

Unfortunately, Yondela didn’t leave without a fight. He claimed the bakery building was his. Apparently, he’s been using it as a church meeting place and he felt he had a claim on the building. He vandalized the building and tried to dismantle a solar street light. We had to file a criminal case and gather witnesses. It was a whole thing. A terrible ending to our trip. the court date was 15 April. I was hoping to report that this is now all over, but it isn’t. Yondela didn’t show up. So now, he’s got one more chance to show up to court and try to prove that the building is his on 11 June.

As soon as things settled down from that incident, the coronavirus was in South Africa and the country entered a strict lockdown. So, once that is lifted, the women are anxious to start baking and offering fresh baked goods to the community.

InSite has sent funds to Anna and Yondela to sustain them and their families during this time. The more disadvantaged communities are hit the hardest with conditions like these.

BTW- Anna’s day care center suffered damage when one of the former solar street lights fell and destroyed the veranda. Luckily no one was hurt. One of our projects while in South Africa was to replace it and give the whole day care a face lift.