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Fifi Peters: As South Africans begin to pick up the pieces of the last week’s unrest, an organization called rebuild sa has been formed to do exactly that. rebuild SA is a community of 57,000 volunteers who have come together to help address the challenges caused by last week’s riots. Joining me is the co founder of this organization by Mbali Ndhlovu, Mbali, thanks so much for joining the show, it is quite commendable, what you guys are doing out there and the president of South Africa himself has expressed his gratitude How’s it going?

Mbali Ndhlovu: From an intentions place to where we are now it has grown exponentially. I thought at the beginning of creating this community that it was just a handful of people who were going to connect with one another and help clean up the affected businesses. From the mass influx, our volunteers have affected communities of NGOs, and people who have even private planes that have helped us to take food down to case it into social workers and health care workers who are able to, we’re waiting for our guidance and who take our guidance to reach to the affected areas. This has been a really, really massive project, it just started over something we were trying to help people connect with one another to assist. And it’s now become a really important and a really important part of my life and the part of Amanda’s life as well. And yeah, that’s pretty much what it is. So we’ve set out to, we’ve received a lot of donations, we’ve received a lot of volunteers who have all gone across the country to the various affected areas to help cleaning up, we also connect with the local cfps and community leaders, as well as some NGOs, who can help us understand some of the projects that really could do some help. So we could also have help play a part in the rebuilding and the actual rebuilding pots of all of this.

Fifi Peters Can you tell us in terms of the money, it’s exactly how much you have received so far, and perhaps where the need still is?

Mbali Ndhlovu Well, to take it back to how we got Yeah, there were a lot of issues happening, or there are a lot of issues as Africa has, that were exacerbated or brought to light by the current trigger of the riots and the chaos that’s unfolded. So those issues, even after cleaning up remain, some are easy fixes, like cleaning up, we’re really blessed to have some companies that want to help out some construction companies to corporate businesses that really want to help businesses from the ground up to rebuild. They’re also the deeper community issues, you know, resources, unemployed, youth skill, access to skills, just access in general to resources or whatever that looks like. So in terms of money, we’ve definitely received a really positive response. In terms of donations, there have been some insane and humbled insane, but all of them are really appreciated in the scale of things where we’re distributing the money. We are liaising with NGOs, because they know exactly who it is, or they need something, but they need money in order to do that. So here’s, here’s a bit of backs, go out there and do what you need. And we’re here to support you as well.

Fifi Peters You have taken the position to not be associated with any political party. Why is that?

Mbali Ndhlovu I’m going to try and choose words carefully. And it’s very difficult. one and six is politics, right? No matter what goes on in politics, the rest of us have to get on with it and to do what needs to be done. So and also, with respect to a lot of politicians, it becomes the politics show. And it really, I mean, we had one incident Well, a couple of incidents where we have been sitting, working in the townships and cleaning up and a group of from wherever, whichever political Association will rock up and do their press thing and then leave they come with a what we thought were volunteers to help us in it, but they they for specific regions for a specific purpose. So politicians are welcome to do their own thing. And if they need guidance, we’re happy to put them in touch with the various and multiple organizations cfps and, and people in need, but I think we’re just going to do our thing. It’s also because it’s for South Africans by South Africans. So it’s kind of nice that we have our own local empowerment, vibe going on.