Kufunda Learning Village

Welcome to Kufunda Village, a resource for the World! We are an inspired community living in our village on the outskirts of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. Our mission is to inspire the co-creation of strong life affirming communities in Zimbabwe and beyond by demonstrating and sharing the necessary ideas, skills and practices that are required for community sustainability and nourishment.
Click here to read more About Us

Kufunda as Host

Kufunda Village practices the Art of Hosting as an operating system. We offer our village and ourselves as hosts not only to our partner communities but also to other individuals and organisations as a place of reflection, retreat and healing.

2010 So far

Despite many challenges (including our website software being down for most of the year), 2010 has been exciting in many respects. Not only have our operational structures changed, but the way in which projects are being supported has also changed drastically. This year we have worked at supplementing our income while demonstrating sustainable projects. Volunteers from around the globe have come and gone, bringing with along with them love, widsom and inspiration. Friends continue to support various projects. We take this opportunity that all who have supported us this year in various ways.

Herb team
So far 2010 has been a bittersweet year for our Herb Team. Early on in the year the team began producing a divese range of processed herb products including soups, herbal salts, teas, soaps, tinctures, salves and more. With added inspiration from our German Volunteer, Dr. Florence, the team continued to grow, inctroducing sales of their products at various shows and fairs. The ever popular herbal training courses and collaboration with ZAVSAP continue. However in June the team, and all of us at Kufunda were dealt a hard blow when our colleage and friend, Sophia Nekati, passed away. Sophia was our most talented herbalist who served with a passion. We all miss her dearly.

Media Team
A fairly new team has sprung up in the form of the Media Team, tasked to record all of exciting happenings in and around Kufunda. We send our thanks to all have supported this team, especially, Beverly Thomson and Catherine Cloud from the USA.

Cleaner Earth
Our Cleaner Earth team is still in its infancy. This year the team have been able to speak to a variety of youth from both rural communities and from the city, speaking about waste management and starting converstaions on 'renewable energy' solutions. The team continues to work toward solarizing Kufunda in the future.

Preschool Team
The Preschool department has continued to support Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) children in our partner communities. This support is includes free preschool education and one nutritious meal a day through our 9 partner preschools. Two representatives attended training in Cape Town through Waldorf Education and passed on this knowledge to our local teachers. The team also received kind support from many friends, including Belgian Building Bridges who has inspired our community youth to work with younger children. Thanks to all who have supported the OVC's

Centre Management Hosting Team.
Our beautiful centre at Kufunda continues to host a variety of guests. Our holistic approach to sustainable nutrition and sustainable living is showcased to all who grace us. The team continue to offer tours of our unique demonstration centre to schools and other interested groups and individuals.

Permaculture Team
Our permaculture team have started growing healthy produce to supply our kitchen (while hosting workshops), our resident preschool and more (although water is still a challenge). They still plan to run permaculture workshops throuought the year as well as give tours of their demo garden which includes vermiculture, composting, water harvesting beds, natural habitats, chicken tractors and more. A new hit has been the sales of seedlings at fairs!

Bicycle project for orphans
Inspired to help orphans who leave school only to find nothing to do, Admire - our Permaculture expert - will be embarking on a Bicycle project for orphans. The plan is to collect old bicycles in Denmark, ship them to Zimbabwe and train orphans and young kids in how to repair them and sell them in order to fundraise for other practical projects. Our current challenge is the high cost of transporting the bikes to Zimbabwe.

The Building Team
The Building Team would like to focus on eco-building. They will run workshops on techniques such as cob-bulding and rammed earth building.

Mushroom Team
Thanks to the assistance of ZERI a mushroom lab was built at Kufunda in 2009 (final touches will be done in 2010). This year the team are aiming to produce one tonne of oyster mushrooms per month. They will also run training workshops for partner communities as well as for paying customers. The workshops will not only include how to grow the mushrooms but also how to produce the seed, thus ensuring a lifetime of sustainable mushroom farming. So far the mushrooms are growing well and the team are working on building a sustainable clientele market

Children at our Centre
In February this year we began our Community project, to host, at Kufunda, 10 youth from our various rural partner communities for 7-8 months. The children have been learning - hands on - all of the life sustaining practices that are being demonstrated at Kufunda. They have also started to learn various life skills and community leadership tools. Once the programme is complete at the end of the year, they will return to their communities as young leaders, empowered with new knowledge and wisdom toward a sustainable livelihood. We send a huge THANK YOU to all who have kindly supported this wonderful project.

Art of Hosting.
This year our Art of Hosting Team hopes to bring the wisdom of hosting successful workshops to Organizations around Zimbabwe, be it for team building, planning or other purposes. Our aim is to make this world renouned technique well known on our own soil. In addition, we plan to host a MEGA Art of Hosting Learning Journey in October (open to anyone who has practiced AoH). Watch this space for more details.

Other courses on offer
Apart from all of the above, Kufunda also offer courses in compost toilet building, jengeta huni stove building, food processing, nutritous cooking, akido & youth camps.

If you would like to attend any of the above workshops kindly contact Lorraine.

Supporting Kufunda in 2010

If you would like to support any of the above initiatives please contact Jackie.