While visiting Londolozi you can experience this and witness our Futuristic African Village by going on a Village Walk in between game drives – the perfect way to get to see the behind the scenes, Londolozi’s way of retro-African living and permaculture in action:
Permaculture is a set of design principles centered on whole systems thinking, simulating, or directly utilizing the patterns and resilient features observed in natural ecosystems. It uses these principles in a growing number of fields from regenerative agriculture, rewilding, and community resilience.
On your Village Walk you’ll experience:
Our sustainability journey started 50 years ago and has been built on the three pillars of heartware, hardware and heritage. Londolozi’s heartware and hardware are underpinned by seven flywheels of sustainability. As you walk through the Londolozi Village you see these flywheels in action. But why flywheels?
“A great flywheel builds compounding momentum over a very long time. Decision upon decision, action upon action, turn by turn- each loop adding to the cumulative effect. A flywheel isn’t merely a next action step on a list, It’s an inevitable consequence of the step that came before.”
We’d love to share this sustainability idea with you.
In 2009 Londolozi built Mandela’s Way (also known as Freedom’s Way) a piece of land-art by Simon Max Bannister that forms the central pathway through the Londolozi Village, lined with indigenous trees and shrubs, planted by the Londolozi Family over the years. Walk along this path, a path walked by Nelson Mandela many years ago, and one that still carries his timeless lessons and ideas – a constant reminder of Mandela’s values.
Freedom’s Way brings attention to the difficult path we all must walk to reach our greatest potential. The words cut from steel, ground the positive values that should be nurtured. The four steel bars represent the obstacles of life that master us – we pass through them to liberate ourselves.
Simon Max Bannister
Our village is based on respect, love and space for each of our own beginnings in the world. As well as expression and celebration of our roots in cultural diversity and a deep understanding that there is so much to learn from each other in knowing that we hold a shared in humanity. Be guided and learn more about the origins of the Shangaan culture.
The Ubuntu Hut is the centre point of our village, and for good reason. Ubuntu translates to the phrase “I am because of you”, a philosophy which is lived by the Londolozi Family, acknowledging the value of everyone’s inputs in creating Londolozi, past and present. Enjoy fascinating stories while in the Ubuntu Hut told by some of the Londolozi Family. From life stories to beautiful encounters, these talks are a definite must while visiting us.
Londolozilozi is the Patron and founding donor of the Good Work Foundation (GWF) and established the first prototype digital learning centre in the Londolozi Village. This beautiful education Live Lab remains today providing educational access to the immediate Londolozi Family.
Visit and discover how from these humble beginnings, GWF has grown and developed as a futuristic EDU model which operates in support of the formal schooling system and is able to deliver access to world class education to the remote villages of rural South Africa. In 2012 the Hazyview Digital Learning Campus (HDLC) prototype was established, located about 100 kilometres from Londolozi and close to the border of the Greater Kruger National Park. This campus is an ecosystem of learning, which was not only designed to supplement the existing schooling system but was also intended to prepare learners technically and emotionally for the arriving digital cloud economy, the fourth industrial revolution and facilitate access to gainful employment with the education and training received.
The success of the GWF is shown by the amazing results being achieved at both its central innovation campus in Hazyview and the six satellite digital campuses, which have been systematically established in the villages adjacent to the Sabi Sands. By 2022 this network of campuses will have the potential to provide digital education facilities for over 26,000 students from the area.
Londolozi’s indigenous plant nursery started nearly 15 years ago on average we propagate about 3500 seeds a year and about 2500 of those seeds take which means that over the last 15 years we have planted roughly 15000 trees, about 1100 trees per year.
Around the Londolozi Village you’ll notice food gardens. These gardens contribute to the Londolozi Kitchen daily and form an internal micro-business for our Londolozi Staff. A Forage to Fork way of living sits at the centre of the Londolozi Food Philosophy.
Visit the Londolozi solar farm and understand how new technology can be utilized to reduce impact within a wilderness reserve. Waste and water management form the foundation for sensitive living.
Londolozi’s Futuristic African Village is a multidimensional philosophy, which realizes that Londolozi is not a game lodge but rather a platform for advocacy for the restoration movement and the new consciousness.
It is a living model for the potential of village living, both in harmony with each other and the natural world. It is the realization that new systems for living can be created, systems that at their core create a sense of wellbeing and belonging in all the sentient beings that reside at Londolozi.
We believe that we have become a Futuristic African Village that combines cutting edge, sustainable technology with the natural world and the magic comes from Village life. Londolozi is a working example of how technology can be utilised to reduce impact within a wilderness reserve and lower demand on finite resources such as water and energy. We are ardently committed to reducing our waste and searching for alternative methods of conducting business on the path to achieving our eventual goal of closed-circuit consumption models in harmony with nature.
