It was once a detention centre, a place of confinement and possibly torture, but now it has turned into a place of hope.
For Pietermaritzburg locals it is a spot referred to as Madala Jele – loosely translated to mean old prison. Here parents drop off their children.
The site is Project Gateway which was once a prison that held many political activists, not least among them Peter Brown and a young Mahatma Gandhi.
When the new prison facility was built nearly a kilometre away, the old prison was left abandoned. It was during the early 1990s when the vision for a development centre was formulated by a group of theologians, including Brian Andrews.
Owing to the nature and age of the buildings, most of the structures have had to be renovated, but this had to get the nod from Amafa – the government body that overseas the welfare of monuments in the province.
Gateway Christian School is one of the main attractions at the facility, and ensures that the venue is a hive of activity.
The school began in the early 1990s, offering classes to children that had been displaced by the Seven Days War, a conflict that ravaged the KZN Midlands.
“When it was set up it was for those kids, it also included kids from Oribi Village and became so good, producing great results. It started attracting the black middle class and that is how we are where we are and very proud at how far it has come,” Reverend Jabulani Mnculwane said.
He added that when the demand for learning grew, attracting a larger number of pupils, they sought permission from the Education Department to run a fully- fledged school which was granted. He said the school, which is 100% self-funded, performs very well owing to the dedication of its teaching staff.
“We have children that come from what one may refer to as a middle-class background and are therefore able to pay their fees, but there are cases of children who come from struggling families that are accommodated here.”
Aside from the school, Project Gateway boasts a museum, an information technology facility and a garden project which is used to provide meals for people in need, whether nearby or far.
“A person who is in need for the vegetables simply needs to seek permission and then take what they need and leave without paying anything,” Mnculwane said.
This approach, he pointed out, is guided by a Bible scripture where Jesus told his disciples and crowds to be kind to other people.
“Our philosophy and guiding principle is that there is no dustbin for a human being, no one is a write-off until they die. Therefore, we will always seek ways of helping people be it physically, psychologically or spiritually because people face a range of challenges,” he said.
As part of this, the centre’s staff members conduct visits to New Prison Correctional facility to provide counselling to inmates in the hope to help them change their lives.
He conceded that the approach to embrace everyone, including drug addicts, does not always endear them to some sections of the community, but stressed that they would not shy away from what is one of the project’s founding principles.
Project Gateway has a presence in a number of communities across Pietermaritzburg and provides a range of interventions, whether in the form of seedlings in areas where there are vegetable gardens, to bread and peanut butter for some.
“The fact of the matter is that not all areas require vegetable gardens, and so it is important to do an analysis of the area before determining the form of assistance to render,” he said.
Mnculwane added that the strength of their work lies in the ability to work with established local community structures, ensuring that whatever intervention they make has an impact.
The success of the project is reflected by regular visits from people outside Pietermaritzburg and even KwaZulu-Natal. Mnculwane cited the instance of women from Makhanda Village who also sought the expertise and the intervention from Project Gateway as a case in point.
The NPO relies on funders. For Mnculwane, its success lies in the dedication of staff who have sacrificed a lot over the years to ensure that what was once a site of incarceration and possible torture transforms into a beacon of hope for many in Pietermaritzburg and surrounding areas.