My name is Dokodela Nkabinde, I am 61 years old, I was born and raised in Sahhulube Village in Mpumalanga, South Africa, I am a father of 5 children. I believe in what my family taught me which is having love for God and respect for Elders.
I planted my first avocado tree at the age of 14. In 1975 I started to work at Msauli Mine, Mpumalanga as a miner. While working at the mine during the week, on the weekends I would spent time at the field growing corn. From 1977 – 1979 I learnt how to farm from Italian family who owned a farmland called Ladwandwa in Barberton. I learnt how to grow tomatoes, bananas, avocados and papayas at Ladwandwa.
From 1980 – 1987 I was working as a road driller, operating heavy machine at Fairview Mine, Barberton. Due to the injury to my left arm I had to leave the Mine. In 1988 I obtained small plot of land at Sahhulube River Bridge in Sahhulube Village and committed to farm full time. I felt disappointed when people started to steal from me at the night and I was loosing my hope and motivation. I decided to move up to the mountains at Salema where I have been living till this day. At first in the mountains I grew tomatoes, bananas, mangoes and avocados by myself hoping to find peace and chasing my dream of better life. I saw that growing bananas had a potential in the mountains. I therefore started banana plantation than and produced many bananas since then as well as the banana tree seedlings. Few years later I was able to produce more and more food and brought it to the people of the Ngoneni Village. I was the first men who introduced tomatoes to my community. By the year 2002 I supplied food for 4 surrounding villages of Ngoneni, Kromdraai, Mlondozi and Boji.
My dream is to pass my skills and the knowledge of agriculture to the youth in the community. I would love to see young people having connection with the land and to have understanding how it could change their lives for the better. Currently, our youth is lost, disempowered and not motivated. My dream is to change their mentality by educating them and showing them by example how they can live more sustainable and fulfilling lives. When they graduate, they can come to our farm and learn how to apply the knowledge of agriculture in practical ways, so they can later implement it in their own homes. My people are unprivileged here in Mpumalanga, but we have a lots of land and if we have an access to the water and knowledge how to grow food, it would eliminate poverty and the conditions they live in today.
If there are people out there in the World who want to support and help our community, what we need are funds for the water pipelines. With water access there is hope to my people.
I am now teaming up with Lucky, Bhudi, Meisie, and Katu, joining a group of like minded individuals who have different experiences in this field and who share a same dream to empower, educate and share the skills which will create positive changes in the lives of people of our and possibly even other surrounding communities. I believe that by getting together there is more chances for success.