The bus rides through her hometown of Bulawayo became Sazini Mojapelo’s first lessons about inequality. Sitting beside her mother, she would watch cars sweep past and wonder why some families seemed to move through life with ease while hers struggled to get by.
Her mother worked tirelessly, yet money was always tight, leaving the young Mojapelo with questions she could not answer. Why did hard work produce such different outcomes? Who decided who had opportunities and who did not?
“I was always curious,” she recalls. “I wanted to understand why the world was structured the way it was. Why did my mother work so hard? Who makes these decisions? I wanted to be part of the people who could change lives.”
Three decades later, Mojapelo has become one of the people she once wondered about – those in a position to shape lives. Earlier this year, she became the first Africa-based chief executive of Village Enterprise, an international non-profit helping families across rural Africa build small businesses and escape extreme poverty.
Raised by a village
Mojapelo’s story begins in circumstances that will resonate with millions of Africans. Born to a teenage mother, she spent much of her early childhood in her grandparents’ home, surrounded by cousins who were treated as brothers and sisters. It was a household where family extended well beyond parents and children, and where everyone shared the responsibility of helping one another get by.
She laughs when people express surprise that she often refers to cousins as siblings.
“I tell people my sister is coming, and they remind me I’m an only child,” she says. “But that’s not how we grew up.”
Life revolved around the collective rather than the individual. Grandparents became parents, older cousins became mentors, and children learned from an early age that whatever belonged to one person ultimately belonged to everyone.
Long before she encountered the word in leadership circles, Mojapelo was living the philosophy of Ubuntu. “I learned community,” she says. “I am because we are.”
Looking back, she believes those years taught her one of the most important lessons of her life. Poverty is not measured only by what people lack. Communities can possess enormous wealth in relationships, resilience and mutual support even when money is scarce.
The golden thread weaves the story of my life. Every job has always been about women, poor communities and creating opportunities
She remembers a home where resources were limited but somehow always stretched a little further because everyone contributed in whatever way they could.
“Regardless of how small your resources are,” she says, “they can always go further.”
As she grew older, she became less curious about her own family’s circumstances and more about the forces that shaped entire communities. Mojapelo wanted to understand why poverty persisted despite people’s determination to work hard, and what it would take to change that reality.
Searching for answers
Choosing development studies was never about finding a prestigious profession. It was about making sense of the inequalities she had witnessed growing up. As graduation approached, she had no doubts about where she belonged.
“I only applied for government jobs,” she says. “I’ve always considered myself a public servant at heart.”
Even now, after leading organisations across multiple sectors, she insists she expects her career to end where it began. “I’ll retire in government,” she says with a smile. “If I have to go into political office, I will.”
At the time, it seemed the obvious path for someone determined to change lives. She had no idea that the greatest turning point in her career would come not from entering government, but from walking away from it.
Finding the golden thread
The defining moment of Mojapelo’s career arrived unexpectedly. After completing her master’s degree in development studies, she threw herself into government work with the conviction that public service offered the greatest opportunity to transform lives. It was exactly where she had always imagined herself. But politics has a habit of interrupting even the best intentions.
A programme she had devoted herself to was abruptly shut down, bringing to an end the work she believed was making a real difference in poor communities. For many people, that would have been the signal to move on. Mojapelo refused.
“I decided we had done so much work,” she recalls. “I’m still going to do this job. I’m still going to do the self-help group model.”
Rather than searching for another secure position, she registered an NGO, began raising money and reached out to the trainers she had worked with, determined that the communities should not become casualties of political decisions made far away from them.
It was a bold move. She had recently married, was raising a young baby and had none of the financial certainty that usually accompanies such a leap. However, walking away from the work was never an option.
“It meant more to me than just having a job,” she says. “It was about who I was.”
Mojapelo’s determination caught the attention of one of the programme’s advisers, who approached her with an offer to partner in building what would become Hand in Hand Southern Africa.
It has to be a partnership. Government, private sector and civil society each bring something different
Looking back, Mojapelo says that period made her. It was when she realised she wasn’t simply doing a job, but had found the work she wanted to dedicate her life to.
“That was when I met my purpose,” she says. “With nothing, I was willing to continue doing this work.” She pauses before introducing a phrase that comes up repeatedly during our conversation. “There is a golden thread.”
It is her way of explaining a career that, from the outside, appears to jump effortlessly between sectors. Government gave way to civil society. Civil society led to corporate South Africa. Banking opened the door to global development. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) eventually led her to Village Enterprise.
“The golden thread weaves the story of my life,” she says. “Every job has always been about women, poor communities and creating opportunities.”
Titles, institutions and countries have all changed. But the purpose, she insists, never has.
Learning that no one can solve Africa’s problems alone
Moving between three very different worlds – government, business and civil society – also changed the way Mojapelo thinks about development.
Early in her career, she believed governments held the answers. Years later, after leading corporate citizenship programmes at Absa Bank and working closely with NGOs and international institutions, she reached a different conclusion.
“No one sector can do it alone,” she says.
The lesson became clear while overseeing programmes designed to prepare young people for the workplace. Businesses could provide funding, expertise and employment opportunities, but without government support the programmes could never become part of the education system. Equally, governments often lacked the flexibility and community connections that civil society organisations brought to implementation.
She remembers working with South Africa’s education authorities to integrate employment-readiness training into schools while community organisations delivered the programmes on the ground. Each partner played a different role, but none could have succeeded independently.
“It has to be a partnership,” she says. “Government, private sector and civil society each bring something different.”
The experience fundamentally reshaped her understanding of leadership. Rather than seeing institutions as competitors, she came to view them as pieces of a much larger puzzle. Real progress, she believes, comes from building coalitions around shared goals rather than insisting that one sector has all the answers.
That philosophy would eventually become one of the reasons she accepted the job that surprised almost everyone around her.
When Village Enterprise approached her while she was working at the International Finance Corporation, many colleagues assumed she would decline. After all, she had reached one of the most prestigious institutions in global development. Walking away from the World Bank Group was not the conventional career move.
For Mojapelo, however, careers have never been built around convention.
