In the remote rural region of Xhora Mouth in Elliotdale, Eastern Cape, the nonprofit Bulungula Incubator has spent the past 20 years driving a quiet revolution for children’s development spanning the life course of young people, from conception to career.
In 2026, the incubator celebrated the graduation of university students from the community who had moved through the full spectrum of its education programmes, from formative years in its early childhood development (ECD) centres to matric preparation in the high school it established in 2019.
Rejane Woodroffe, director and co-founder of the Bulungula Incubator, has described the organisation’s efforts as an example of “place-based development”, with a context-specific, deep focus on a particular area. By treating healthcare, nutrition and education not as isolated issues but as interconnected drivers of human potential, the incubator has fundamentally transformed what it means to grow up in the deep rural community.
“We talk about scaling deep... It takes 20 years to have this kind of impact,” Woodroffe explained. “And then also scaling out, which is the incubation of other organisations [and] enabling individuals who have good ideas.”
Rejane Woodroffe, co-founder of the Bulungula Incubator, has played a key role in driving community-led development initiatives and improving access to education, healthcare and sustainable livelihoods in Xhora Mouth, Eastern Cape. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) Bulungula Incubator co-founder Dave Martin. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) Building BI
The Bulungula Incubator began its work in 2007, just three years after co-founder Dave Martin launched the Bulungula Xhosa Community Lodge in the area as a joint job creation venture with the community. At the time, Xhora Mouth had no roads, piped water, electricity or sanitation infrastructure. Falling under the former black homeland region known as the Transkei, it had seen very little development in terms of government services.
In 2006, a third of the babies in the local village died as a result of contaminated drinking water.
“That was when we started trying to think of what other interventions could be done outside the lodge... We started very small, with some rainwater tanks, so at least we could get uncontaminated drinking water, and then that was essentially the birth of the incubator,” said Martin.
Rural pupils make their way back home from school. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) Pupils walk home after a full day of learning. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) Much has changed in Xhora Mouth since then. A network of roads now connects the four villages that make up the area to the surrounding region; a water system supports communal taps for the homesteads scattered across the rolling hills; and in the past two years transmission lines have brought electricity to the furthest edge of the community where it runs along the Wild Coast.
The Bulungula Lodge, which Martin handed over to be fully owned and run by locals in 2014, continues to draw a steady stream of tourism to the breathtaking coastline.
But one of the greatest transformations, driven largely by the incubator, in partnership with the local government and community, has been in education.
Pupils in a classroom at Bulungula Preschool. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) Children outside a classroom at Bulungula Preschool. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) Early childhood development
Daily Maverick sat down with Martin and Woodroffe in the rondavel that houses a small library at the Jujurha ECD Centre, the first early learning facility the Bulungula Incubator established back in 2009. The organisation targeted the development of education as the lever through which the cycle of poverty in the Xhora Mouth area could be broken, said Woodroffe.
“We needed to demonstrate what excellent education was, and that was [through] this very preschool that you’re sitting in,” she said.
“It was our first major project, and after two years, parents... said to me: ‘You’ve turned the light on in my child’s mind’ – because you could see the difference.”
Children at Phaphamani Preschool in Xhora Mouth. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) Pupils gather for breakfast at Bulungula Preschool in Xhora Mouth – vital nutrition that sets them up for a day of learning. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) After the success of the first ECD centre, the traditional leader in the Xhora Mouth area pushed the incubator to establish an early learning facility in each of the three neighbouring villages. Local residents contributed to the effort, donating land and building mud huts to house classes.
Today, the incubator has five registered ECD centres, staffed by 11 teachers, supporting 146 children in the area, according to Lindiwe Tukane, education programme manager at the organisation.
Breakfast time at Bulungula Preschool. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) But early learning does not start at the centres. It starts in the home, with nomakhayas (community health workers) walking from hut to hut to gu…
Read the full article at Daily Maverick →
ZA