Finding our voices

Khayisile Matsaba

By: Khanyisile Matsaba

As we reach the end of 2025, we end it with excitement as we have done amazing and exciting work from our different communities. We began formal work a bit late this year because we faced a lot of challenges, be it financially or problems in our communities, but we strived to bring hope. Being part of the community monitoring school has been a blessing to our community.

Our community is now well-known for the problems caused by the mine; many residents have lost hope, but we aim to bring it back as the young members living here.

It has been five years since the Voelpan dam flooded the streets of this community. Most of the residents used to lack the courage or platform to speak out. Still, since we have been monitoring the issue with other communities and NGOs, we have finally become our own voices as the people from Voelpan, even though we haven’t received any help.

The people from Riverside whose houses are flooded, the learners and educators from Mosala Secondary School, and the small-scale farmers have finally found their voices through targeted investigation. They have used this platform to lay out how the Voelpan affected their livelihood. It may take time for us to be free from Voelpan and its burden, but what matters is that we have finally found our own voices.

The year was short with a lot of work, but at the end of the day, we had done a lot as monitors from the monitoring school, and we learned from each other. We have unlearned a lot of things that we thought were right for our communities, which were in fact causing even more problems or conflict. We have created a family that really cares for each other. Monitoring school has helped create a community that listens, that plans, and strives to achieve one goal, which is being free from the burdens that come with mining. It is a long journey, but eventually we will get there as long as young people and people who have been in this struggle finally work together and put their minds together. We will help our communities to help themselves, for their voices to be heard.

It is said that “God helps those who help themselves. “