During our most recent visit to South Africa, we were grateful to be welcomed by Rev. Dr. Spiwo Xapile at the JL Zwane Community Centre once again. We spent the morning talking about our journey so far this year, from when we first met in February 2010 until now. Rev. Xapile has an amazing tenacity to stick with things until a solution appears and has a real interest in the work we are doing in Cradock, particularly in the process and program we take the members of the community through to create a change in mindset to be able to properly establish needs and opportunities. We had an active discussion talking about what the members of the community had accomplished and how they had engaged the leadership of the town and region to really see and understand that they may not have the paper qualifications for what they want to accomplish but that they do indeed have the will and the skills.

In our minds, the keys to success include having the mindset ourselves of committing to support the communities we engage to achieve the things they want and committing for the long term. By creating a model whereby we run the projects we establish like a business instead of a not-for-profit organization, a business with heart that is, we believe we can be effective in skills and knowledge transfer as well as supporting the establish of successful long term business ventures within the communities. This is one of the benefits for My Arms Wide Open® in having a partner like Manzimvula® Ventures, Inc.