In a country where over 32% of people are unemployed and millions depend on state grants just to survive, a quiet revolution is rising from the streets of Evaton, south of Johannesburg. It goes by the name Isinkwa Sethu Zulu for Our Bread and it is challenging the way South Africans think about poverty, grants, and community ownership.
The question on many people’s minds: Is this a genuine economic breakthrough, or is it simply too good to last?
From Grant Money to Business Investment
The story begins with former financial advisor Sibusiso Ntsele, who watched helplessly as grant money evaporated in his community almost as soon as it arrived consumed by immediate needs, and often by substance abuse and desperation. Rather than accept this cycle as inevitable, Ntsele conceived an idea rooted in an institution as South African as braai and ubuntu: the stokvel.
Through what he calls the Isicholo Investment Stokvel, Ntsele invited Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant recipients to pool portions of their monthly R370 payments and collectively invest them into township businesses. The response was extraordinary. The stokvel reportedly grew to more than 8 000 members before operations even began a figure that speaks volumes about how hungry communities are for an alternative to dependency.
The first major move was the acquisition and revival of a struggling local bakery. The group spent more than R480 000 purchasing the property and roughly another R100 000 on repairs, electrical upgrades, and solar infrastructure. Today, the bakery is fully operational, employing nine staff members and two drivers, and returning profits to its investor-members. Since then, the initiative has expanded into a supermarket and butchery, with both launched to fanfare that attracted local celebrities and media attention nationally.
A Model That Turns Grant Recipients Into Owners
What makes Isinkwa Sethu genuinely remarkable is not simply that it creates jobs South Africa is full of well-meaning initiatives that create a handful of jobs and then quietly collapse. What distinguishes this model is the ownership structure.
Every member of the stokvel is an investor, not a beneficiary. They are not receiving charity; they are holding a stake. This distinction matters enormously. When people own something, they protect it, promote it, and take pride in it. The bakery, supermarket, and butchery are not charities handed down to a grateful community they are businesses owned by that community
For people like Fannie Mpembe, a former security guard who found work through the initiative after years of unemployment, the difference is tangible. “I have four children to feed, so this job helps me a lot,” he said. His is not a story of welfare it is a story of dignity.
Addressing a Deeper Problem: Money Leaving the Township
Ntsele is direct about what he sees as the core economic disease afflicting South African townships: money that flows in from grants, wages, and remittances immediately flows back out to large retailers, most of them owned by people who have no stake in the township’s wellbeing.
“When you realise how much we spend on bread daily, you will understand that we are only giving money away to big, established corporates and we are not benefiting anything in return,” he has said publicly. His vision is not just to create jobs, but to manufacture locally, source locally, and build locally keeping the economic multiplier circulating within the community rather than bleeding it dry.
This is not a new idea in economic development circles. Township economies have long been identified as “leaky buckets” money enters but quickly drains to external businesses. What Isinkwa Sethu offers is a practical, community-driven plug for that leak.
The Bigger Debate: Should Social Grants Build Economies?
Isinkwa Sethu arrives at a moment of intense national debate about the future of South Africa’s SRD grant, which supports millions of unemployed citizens. The grant, currently sitting at R370 per month, has been criticised both for being too small to lift people out of poverty and for potentially fostering long-term dependency rather than economic participation.
The Isinkwa Sethu model implicitly challenges the conventional wisdom that grants and investment are separate conversations. It asks: what if the very money the government is already distributing could be channelled voluntarily and collectively into productive assets?
Economists and development specialists have long noted that many township entrepreneurs are locked out of traditional finance because they lack collateral, credit histories, and formal business records. In that vacuum, community models like stokvels are becoming alternative financing channels for small enterprises and Isinkwa Sethu is one of the most ambitious experiments in that space.
So Can It Work? The Honest Assessment
The enthusiasm around Isinkwa Sethu is warranted. The early results operational businesses, employed community members, investor returns are real and meaningful. But a clear-eyed assessment demands that we also name the risks.
The concentration of leadership in a single visionary founder is both a strength and a vulnerability. Sibusiso Ntsele’s drive and financial literacy are what made this possible. If he steps away, or if trust in his leadership erodes for any reason, the model could fracture. Sustainable community enterprises typically require distributed leadership and transparent governance structures.
Scale brings complexity. Managing a bakery is one thing; managing a bakery, supermarket, butchery, and potentially many more enterprises across multiple communities requires business systems, accounting, legal compliance, and supply chain management that most stokvels are not equipped for. The leap from informal collective to formal enterprise group is significant.
The SRD grant itself is precarious. Government has not committed to the grant indefinitely. If payments are reduced or discontinued, the stokvel’s funding base could shrink dramatically, stalling expansion at a critical time.
Competition is real. Large retail chains have deep supply chains, negotiated pricing, and massive marketing budgets. A community supermarket competing on the same streets faces a tough structural battle unless it can truly differentiate through local products, community loyalty, and niche offerings.
None of these risks are fatal. Many successful cooperatives and community enterprises have navigated similar challenges. But they require honest acknowledgement, robust planning, and external support from government, the private sector, and civil society.
Why It Still Matters
Even if Isinkwa Sethu faces obstacles ahead, it has already done something important: it has changed the narrative. It has shown unemployed South Africans not as passive recipients of state support, but as active economic agents capable of building something together. It has demonstrated that the stokvel one of Africa’s oldest financial institutions can evolve into a serious vehicle for township economic development.
It has also issued a quiet challenge to policymakers: if over a thousand grant recipients can pool their meagre payments and build a functioning bakery, what might be possible with structural policy support, access to business development services, and the kind of patient capital that township entrepreneurs almost never receive?
Isinkwa Sethu may not be the final answer to South Africa’s unemployment crisis. But it is a bold, grounded, and deeply human attempt to ask a different question not what can the government do for us? but what can we do for ourselves, together?
And in a country that has been asking the first question for too long, that shift deserves our full attention.