Our Founders’ Story
In Nguni culture, Imbeleko is a ceremonial celebration that introduces and welcomes a newborn child to living and ancestral spirits. The ceremony summonses good health and a prosperous life journey for the child.
It was in this spirit that the Imbeleko Foundation was created in 2010 by former banker, Sbusisiwe 'S’bu' Myeni, and her late sister, Dr Seni Myeni. The foundation has planted its roots in the area that the sisters grew up in, the Valley of a Thousand Hills, in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. This culturally vibrant and dynamic region of South Africa has a long and troubled socio-economic history, rooted in the ills of the colonial era as much as the country’s more recent apartheid past. Local communities suffer from a lack of basic civil services, poverty, high unemployment levels and the impact of long-term health crises such as HIV / AIDS.
For S’bu, the Imbeleko Foundation is a personal story of grief, as well as that of an ambition to create a legacy project in honour of a pact she made with her late twin sister, Dr Seni Myeni. It is also a story of two young girls, who were raised by parents who worked in Community Development and Health.
The sisters took a shared oath to pay the benefits they received from their scholarships forward to the next generations of their community. Seni died of a brain tumour in 2006 at age 31 and entrusted Sbu to build their family legacy by empowering vulnerable children and youth through education.
S’bu and the Imbeleko Foundation have a proud history of directly addressing the educational and health care crises impacting this community. The foundation's efforts initially targeted children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in the 1990s. It has expanded its scope to address wider social challenges. Since inception, the Imbeleko Foundation has scaled up its activities from 250 Science and Commerce learners in one community to 2000 learners in 15 rural communities in KwaZulu Natal.
The organisation is based in a village called KwaNyuswa, in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, Durban, South Africa; where its Co-Founders; twin sisters; Dr Seni Myeni-Offiah and Sbu Myeni were born and raised by parents who both worked in Community Development and Health. Having been awarded full high school scholarships at the age of 12 to study at the prestigious Inkamana High School and later on UCT; qualifying as a Medical Doctor and Statistician respectively – they knew they had a responsibility to give back to the community that had contributed in raising them.
Whilst living and working as a Physician in Canada, Seni was unfortunately diagnosed with a Grade IV Gliobastoma Multiforme (a very aggressive brain tumor) in 2003 and given a very poor prognosis. Despite being blind and unable to walk during the last few months of her life, she made it her purpose to work with her twin sister to formulate her vision and model for their Foundation.
At the height of grieving the loss of her sister, Sbu quit her International Banking career, returned to KZN and re-invented her life in 2011 by launching Imbeleko Foundation - providing holistic education and support for vulnerable children in their childhood community; as a legacy to honor her late twin sister. Imbeleko currently runs two core activities: a series of afterschool programs and a scholarship fund. A number of other initiatives, ranging from nutrition and food, healthcare, mentoring, sports, arts and culture, and family counselling provide needed peripheral support to the children’s families to ensure their educational success. Over the past 10 years, Imbeleko's outreach now spans beyond into various rural communities in the province of KwaZulu Natal.
Imbeleko is a Zulu word for a cloth that is used by African mothers to carry babies on their backs. The Imbeleko cloth provides warmth and allows the babies to hear the sound of their mother's heartbeat when they lay their heads against their mother's backs.