Our story
How Zonke Kids began
One man, a village in Mpumalanga, and fifteen children. Fifteen years later the school he started is run by his daughter and has taught close to a thousand children.
It started with Road Works
Randy Finkbeiner came to KwaMhlanga, South Africa, to care for people who were sick and dying from AIDS-related illness. He stayed five years. What he saw there changed what he thought he was for — young mothers dying, and their children left behind with no one to raise them.
In 2006 he registered Road Works — restoration and development works — a small Christian nonprofit in Oregon, to fund orphan care in the village. Its motto was “making a road in the wilderness that leads to Jesus.”
“After five years bearing witness to hundreds of deaths, my heart turned to prevention. I asked myself: how might we help young people see their future from another point of view, and give them freedom to choose another way?”
Randy Finkbeiner
The preschool opened with fifteen children
He called it Zonke Izizwe — all nations. The name was deliberate. Mandela Village is largely made up of families from neighboring African countries who came seeking asylum and a decent education for their children, and a school named “all nations” said plainly who was welcome.
Enrolment grew nearly every year: forty children in 2011, sixty-two by 2013, ninety-five by 2018 — the largest year, with seven staff. Along the way came a second classroom for the four-year-olds, five new toilets, a sand pit, a soccer club, a girls' dance club, an annual Preschool Olympics, a concert in traditional dress, and a graduation with caps and gowns that the whole village turns out for.
His daughter took it on
Randy died in 2022. Idah Vilakazi — his adopted daughter, from KwaMhlanga herself — stepped in as director and kept the doors open through a genuinely uncertain year.
Under her leadership the school has grown and steadied. She knows every family by name, which is not something a founder from eight thousand miles away could ever have said.
The school is now Zonke Kids
Seventy children come through the gate each morning. They eat breakfast and lunch here, learn in English, and are looked after by teachers who have mostly been here for years.
We are building a wider circle of friends and supporters — in South Africa and abroad — so the school can keep doing what it has done since 2011. A Move the Mountain team is forming from within our own community to provide leadership as we grow. The name comes from Matthew 21:21.
What guides us
Mission, outcomes and values
Our mission
- Quality care and education for children.
- To see children cared for, loved, educated and connected with Jesus.
- To promote activities that develop healthy children.
- Everything filtered through one statement: loving God, loving others.
Our outcomes
What we want a child to leave here carrying:
- Awareness of God's love.
- Empathy for peers.
- Respect for adults.
- Care for the environment.
- Conversational English.
Our values
- Integrity and transparency with donors.
- Self-governance within the organisation.
- Relationship with Jesus over religion.
Phambili nge Zonke Izizwe phambili — forward.
Our people
Meet the Zonke team
Teachers for each age group, an administrator, an after-school teacher, a cook and a nurse — plus volunteers from the village and the occasional visitor from overseas. Most of them have been here for years.
Testimonials
What families and teachers say
Thato started at the preschool when she was two, in 2012. She learned many things and she can speak English now. When she gets home she sings for me and says everything they taught her. The teachers care, love and teach.Annah Masilela — grandmother
I thank the Lord that he is still our shepherd. Working with kids means a lot to me — it gives me courage to keep on leading and teaching them about life. Their parents are so overwhelmed with joy because of their kid's performance.Vuyiswa — past teacher
Every parent wants their child at our preschool. Teachers are working so hard making sure that they provide a good quality education, and most of all a safer environment for children.Michelle — past admin
Support Zonke Kids
Your gift keeps the classroom open
Zonke Izizwe runs on donations. What you give pays the teachers, buys the food, and keeps the lights on for seventy children in Mandela Village.