Village Roots, Modern Solutions

My name is Lungani Mbatha, and I’m from Botha’s Hill, just outside Hillcrest in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa ,a place where farming is rare, dreams are often delayed, and opportunities are few. But I’ve never let that stop me from trying.That’s how OurPlazi was born.The name is a simple mix of two powerful words:
“Our” (from English) + “Plazi” (Zulu for “farm”) = OurPlazi.
It means “Our Farm,” not just mine. Not just yours. Ours. It’s not just a brand; it’s a vision. A dream to build a space where people from villages, townships, and overlooked communities can buy, sell, grow, learn, and rise together. So far, I’ve tested ideas. i realised that most people can’t order veggies in bulks because they don’t have a place to store these things and since in most communities we have a problem with electricity which means refrigiration  storage is a major challenge, which is the biggest factor in cost maintainance, I’ve built a working prototype of a cooling system that can preserve vegetables using mostly natural energy….. I have built an App that will help small farmers meet the customers and find suppliers……., all of these were the result of many challenges i have faced from rotting veggies and so forth like see……..  I’ve sold eggs on foot doing door to door……., built chicken coops from scrapyard materials trying to grow my chicken …….., and studied agriculture online, growing the skill to grow veggies in the piece of land i have ……… I’ve spoken to local vendors, shop owners, and unemployed youth this is what has led me to work on building the App and the cooling system project. But the real project, the cooling hub, will act as the local supply center for any small aspiring seller to source from , since we are far from farms. I want to bring it closer to the people without having them to worry about refrigiration ,storage and electricity power cut. This isn’t a story of “look at what I’ve done.” It’s a story of “look at what we can do together.” This blog is my proposal in real-time. It’s proof of passion, planning, progress, and possibility. It’s where I lay down the blueprint of what OurPlazi will be from village to vision, from problem to prototype, and from hustle to storage and information hub. You’re not reading history. You’re reading something being built right now with whatever resources I can get, one piece at a time. belowe will take you through the stages and history on i have done also most importantly what has led me to the idea of developing and building the storage center that uses less enenrgy.