Our Story

Eva Williams
Imbali Director & Project Leader

An offspring of Women for Peace, Imbali was founded in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1988: to provide art education in rural South Africa schools. In time this developed into multiple programmes that support children and adults in disadvantaged communities achieve a better quality of life.

In 2001, two original members of Imbali, Yvonne Wilson and Jeanne Bestbier-Bloch joined forces as neighbours of Kylemore Village to provide art education for the village children under the auspices of Imbali. So Imbali Western Cape was founded, but soon they discovered that the children were often too malnourished even to enjoy the art. This lead to a joint effort with local farmers’ wives to establish a soup kitchen in the winter months, and provide a meal with the art classes.

Joined early on by Eva Williams (now a director and project leader) and other community volunteers, Imbali in Kylemore has become an established part of the village tapestry. It has enabled the community to launch a number of initiatives to address the needs of both children and their under-employed parents… on the basis of respect for whole person – whole family – whole community.