About us

The Lesedi project is located in a rural area 15 minutes’ drive from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Despite being relatively close to town, the daily existence could be from another world. Most families survive by cattle raising and subsistence farming on the infertile Kalahari sands. Generally poorly educated, the communities around Lesedi have low aspiration levels and limited role models. Poverty has persisted for generations.

Prior to Lesedi, the nearest local school was many kilometres away. Children were often absent or dropped out of school altogether. Many parents, unable to pay school fees, preferred their children to remain at home to help with household chores. There is a high incidence of HIV and AIDS.

When one of the project’s founders – renowned safari guide, Benson Siyawareva – built a homestead in the area, he realized that many of the children weren’t going to school. Having grown up in similar circumstances, he pledged to try and make a difference. That was the start of Lesedi, which means ‘Light’.
At the time, Benson was running a safari company with his business partner of many years, Fiona Thompson. Fiona and her husband Graeme (both trained as Chartered Accountants in the UK) had met Benson on safari over 20 years ago and remained firm friends ever since. Having decided a school was needed, Benson was quick to bring his friends on board to support the project.

The Lesedi project was started in 2014 with a simple hut, a handful of youngsters and one trainee teacher. In 2015, the Ngoko Charitable Trust, a UK registered charity was set up to support Lesedi and potentially other education and health projects in Zimbabwe.

Lesedi today is unrecognizable from that first hut, comprising a $1.5 million campus of a primary school, secondary school, clinic and all the buildings and infrastructure needed to operate in a rural area. Lesedi now has over 500 children, staff and volunteers. We have special needs support at primary, IT labs for all school ages and vocational workshops at secondary school teaching essential vocational skills.

Lesedi Community Projects is now run by a Board of Directors in Zimbabwe, which includes the three co-founders. We have a strong local team, which is headed by our Programs Director, Mr Toendepi Kamusewu. The schools are run on a community basis with the support of parents through the School Development Committees.

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