Built to grow people and strengthen communities
About us
Jika Uluntu is a registered South African non-profit company based in the Eastern Cape. Since 2017, we have worked alongside children, young people, families, schools, communities and institutions to strengthen wellbeing, leadership, economic participation and social cohesion.
Today, Voices of Ubuntu is our flagship programme—bringing together research-informed, culturally rooted and arts-based approaches with skills development, local work opportunities and funded community access
Our story
Governance & Accreditation
Jika Uluntu NPC is governed through formal oversight, financial controls, safeguarding responsibilities and regulatory compliance.
Registration information, current governance documents and organisational reports are made available to funders, partners and the public to support transparency and responsible stewardship.
NPC Registration
NPC 2017/292723/08
Registered as a Non-Profit Company with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), Republic of South Africa.
NPO Registration
NPO 194-058
Registered as a Non-Profit Organization with the Department of Social Development
PBO Status · s18A
PBO 930067648
Jika Uluntu is registered as a Public Benefit Organisation with the South African Revenue Service.
Section 18A receipts are issued for qualifying donations in accordance with Jika Uluntu’s SARS approval and applicable requirements.
B-BBEE Status
B-BBEE Level 1 – At Least 75% Black Beneficiaries
The current B-BBEE Affidavit is available for download below and on request via the Contact page.
QCTO Accreditation
The Ubuntu Mentor Training programme is currently going through the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) accreditation process. Once complete, the training will lead to a recognised qualification. Enquiries about the training pathway are welcome via the Become a Mentor page.
Board of Directors
Jika Uluntu NPC is governed by a Board of Directors that provides oversight of organisational strategy, financial management, risk, safeguarding and regulatory compliance.
The Board reviews performance approves major policies and commitments and holds the organisation’s leadership accountable for the responsible use of resources and delivery of its nonprofit mandate.
Training and Accreditation Pathways
Our flagship programme is a structured four-stage leadership journey rooted in the African philosophy of Ubuntu—”a person is a person through other people.”
Beginning with emotional literacy in early childhood and progressing through drama, perspective-building, rites of passage and mentor development, Voices of Ubuntu equips children, young people and community practitioners with the skills to lead themselves and strengthen the communities around them.
Ziyanda Xaso
Founder of Voices of Ubuntu · Director of Jika Uluntu NPC · Director of Ubuntu Consulting and Services
Founder & Director
Ziyanda Xaso is the creator and strategic lead of Voices of Ubuntu and the Director of Jika Uluntu NPC. She leads the programme’s design, methodology and strategic development, bringing together systems thinking, African-centred research, education and community practice. Her work is grounded in the belief that sustainable change is built with communities, rather than delivered to them.
Her professional path spans financial regulation, training, research, literacy and nonprofit leadership. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Rhodes University, where she majored in Applied Mathematics and Chemistry. She began her career in the actuarial division of the then Financial Services Board, progressing from Junior Technical Assistant to Team Leader, before joining Alexander Forbes Consultants and Actuaries as an employee-benefits consultant. These roles gave her a rigorous grounding in governance, regulatory compliance, risk, project management and the responsibility of safeguarding other people’s interests.
Ziyanda later completed a Master of Social Science in African Studies at the University of Fort Hare. Her dissertation, The Meaning of Ukuthwasa: Urban Youth Perspectives on Social Change and the Persistence of Tradition in the Eastern Cape, examined the experiences of urban young people called to ukuthwasa and the ways in which indigenous cultural practice continues to shape psychosocial identity under changing social conditions. The research established a foundation for her continuing interest in cultural continuity, identity formation and community-rooted approaches to wellbeing.
Her research and published writing extend into public health, policing and the continuing effects of apartheid-era trauma. With anthropologist Amber Reed, she co-authored Experiencing Covid-19 after Apartheid, published by African Arguments in 2021, and the peer-reviewed article Policing the (post)colonial body: The Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa, published in Anthropology Southern Africa in 2022. The work examines how lockdown policing and restrictions on movement reactivated memories of surveillance, violence and isolation among former anti-apartheid activists.
Ziyanda has also contributed practice-based perspectives to the Women RISE Ukuvula Isango research collaboration involving the Human Sciences Research Council and McGill University, including reflections on trauma and disruption in women’s lives. She has complemented this research experience by completing the Systems Change and Social Impact short course at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, convened by the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
For more than a decade, she has worked at the intersection of education and community development. Her experience includes facilitating NQF-aligned skills programmes for hundreds of learners, leading positive-youth-development work across twenty schools, conducting research on rural livelihoods and climate resilience, and supporting a Nal’ibali mobile literacy programme that reached nearly 4,000 children each week.
Ziyanda joined Jika Uluntu as Education Specialist in 2022 and became Director in 2023. She now leads the organisation’s integrated work across child protection and safety, education, health and wellbeing, and household economic strengthening. Her contribution to community education and upliftment was recognised when she was named a Daily Dispatch Local Hero in 2022.
Voices of Ubuntu brings these different strands of her journey together. Ziyanda created it as a structured, evidence-informed and culturally grounded leadership-development framework occupying a deliberate third space: neither clinical therapy nor entertainment. Rooted in the African philosophy of Ubuntu and delivered through arts-based and relational methodologies, the programme develops emotional literacy, empathy, perspective, identity resilience and community leadership—from early childhood through to Ubuntu Mentor practice.
Her vision is for Voices of Ubuntu to become widely accessible through schools, communities and institutions, while ensuring that communities remain the authors of their own solutions and the leaders of their own development.
For speaking, media or partnership enquiries, contact the Jika Uluntu office via the Contact page.
THE TEAM
Our People
Voices of Ubuntu is delivered by a team that carries both craft and community — accredited facilitators, theatre-makers, organisers and administrators, most of them rooted in the very Eastern Cape communities the work serves. Together they hold the stages, the safeguarding, the bookings and the books.
Livingstone Zuko Hendrick
The engine room — programme delivery, partnerships and compliance across the Eastern Cape.
Livingstone oversees programme delivery, team leadership and organisational operations across the Eastern Cape. He manages donor-funded projects from implementation through to reporting, builds and maintains strategic partnerships with government departments, schools, clinics and community structures, and ensures the organisation’s full compliance with DSD, SETA and NPO statutory requirements.
A certified Facilitator, Assessor and Moderator, Livingstone is a registered Skills Development Facilitator who has secured HWSETA-funded programmes for the organisation. He holds a Diploma in Project Management and brings deep expertise in proposal development and stakeholder engagement. His work is guided by the spirit of Ubuntu: I am because we are.
Phelisa Ntoyakhe
Acclaimed stage and screen performer. SETA-accredited facilitator. Theatre that transforms.
Phelisa stands at the intersection of artistic excellence and social impact. A SETA-accredited facilitator and acclaimed stage and screen performer — with credits spanning the National Arts Festival, the Guild Theatre, and Yellowbone Entertainment’s Knuckle City and Valedictory — she has delivered high-stakes industrial theatre for the Department of Human Settlements, Eskom and the National Gambling Board.
At Jika Uluntu she architects arts-based programmes that drive healing, leadership and community transformation. Her conviction is simple: theatre doesn’t just entertain — it transforms.
Sgqibo Dyani
Performing artist, accredited Forum Theatre facilitator and art director, rooted in Kwelera.
Sgqibo is a multi-disciplinary performing artist, accredited Forum Theatre Facilitator and Art Director based in Kwelera. His work bridges theatre, music and community engagement, rooted deeply in African storytelling traditions, and uses performance as a catalyst for dialogue and healing across youth development, identity and resilience.
His facilitation blends creative expression with trauma-informed care, crafting community-centred scripts, mentoring emerging artists, and building inclusive, safe spaces for creative exploration. He is known for thoughtfully integrating storytelling, movement and music to give voice to the lived realities of his community.
Sindiswa Yamkela Mabadi
Theatre-maker exploring the body as a site of memory, expression and transformation.
Sindiswa is a theatre-maker, facilitator and creative practitioner based in East London. She holds a Diploma in Theatre and Performance from the University of Cape Town, where she was recognised on the Dean’s Merit List in 2022 and 2023 and awarded the Thembile Phephetheka Cup in 2025 for her contribution to the field.
Within Voices of Ubuntu she creates grounded, responsive spaces where young people explore emotional awareness, reconnect with their bodies, and develop tools for self-expression and healing. Her approach draws on Forum Theatre, movement-based practice and storytelling, with an emphasis on process-led engagement.
Olwethu Royi
A decade of public leadership, now driving partnerships across government, civil society and sport.
Olwethu drives strategic engagement across government, civil society, sport and advocacy sectors, leading stakeholder partnerships and coordinating programmes that promote identity, inclusion and community resilience.
She brings more than a decade of public leadership: two consecutive terms as a Proportional Representative Councillor at Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (2011–2021), including service as Chief Whip of the Official Opposition and on the Finance and Municipal Public Accounts Committees. In 2024 she founded VIT Hands, a non-profit supporting people affected by vitiligo, HIV and other chronic conditions — advocacy grounded in her own lived experience. A sought-after motivational speaker and MC, she holds a Diploma in Local Government Law and Administration from the University of Fort Hare and a certificate in Municipal Public Accounts Committee Oversight from Rhodes University.
Yvonne Lusanda Mali
Systematic organisation with a community heart — and a facilitator's touch.
Yvonne brings a powerful blend of systematic organisation and community heart to Jika Uluntu’s daily operations, managing office communications, financial records and operational tasks. She holds dual administrative qualifications from Boston Business College and draws on years of structured administrative experience in the legal sector.
She is also a certified NQF Level 5 Facilitator, and puts that qualification to work inside the Voices of Ubuntu programme itself — helping drive family healing, storytelling and youth leadership in the community.
Iman Xaso
The first voice a client hears — bookings, relationships, and the income that sustains the work.
Iman coordinates programme and event bookings, builds strong relationships with clients and partners, and supports the income-generating initiatives that strengthen the organisation’s sustainability and impact.
Passionate about community development, she is known for her strong organisational skills and collaborative approach, and is committed to expanding Jika Uluntu’s work in empowering children, strengthening families, and using the arts to inspire healing and positive social change.
Siphenathi Mdishwa
Communication as advocacy — campaigns, content and design in service of healing and belonging.
Raised in Mooiplaas, a rural community outside East London, Siphenathi is a marketing professional, creative communicator and community advocate who uses the power of communication to inspire positive social change. She holds a National N6 Certificate in Marketing Management and leads the development of the marketing and branding materials that carry the Voices of Ubuntu message — campaigns, digital content, social media, brochures and visual resources.
Beyond marketing, she supports programme implementation and community engagement in healing-centred initiatives. Guided by the philosophy of Ubuntu — I am because we are — she believes communication is not only about sharing information, but about building relationships, restoring hope, and creating spaces where every voice is valued and heard.
Othandwayo Mketo
The youngest voice on the team — award-winning debater, theatre-maker, original.
At nineteen, Othandwayo is the youngest marketing associate in Jika Uluntu’s history — and one of its most distinctive voices. An award-winning debater (2025 Top Debater), adjudicator and advocate, they bring the confidence of the stage and the precision of the debating chamber to the organisation’s sales and marketing work.
Othandwayo’s background is in theatre, with original artistic concepts that merge visual, physical and theatrical art — including forum theatre in the tradition of Augusto Boal and ‘Looking Through the San’s of Time’, a work connected to the Voices of Ubuntu Journey to Self series. From the conference room to centre stage, they are proof of what the pipeline produces: young people who step into the story and step into themselves.