Honouring heritage through enterprise: The story of Kedibone Nyamakazi
- ORIBI Village
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
This Heritage Month, Oribi celebrates the entrepreneurs who carry tradition forward not by preserving it in the past, but by building it into the future. Their businesses remind us that heritage isn't only what we inherit; it's what we choose to grow.
One of them is Kedibone Nyamakazi, founder and CEO of AgriPremium, and a proud
alumna of Oribi's incubation programme.
When COVID-19 brought her catering business to a standstill, Kedibone turned setback into opportunity. Through the Classic Oriental programme, she received an award and funding from Standard Bank, allowing her to turn her passion for livestock farming into a professional enterprise.
Livestock farming and goat breeding in particular carries deep cultural significance across South African communities, tied to tradition, ceremony, and generational knowledge. Today, AgriPremium specialises in breeding high-quality goats and other livestock, while also delivering accredited agricultural training and championing sustainable farming practices honouring that heritage while modernising it for the next generation of farmers.
But what makes Kedibone's journey especially meaningful is the way she is paying it forward. After graduating from Oribi's incubation programme in 2024, she became a mentor and trainer within our development programmes, passing on both practical agricultural knowledge and a sense of pride in farming as a heritage industry to emerging farmers.
Her journey has also taken her to the regional stage, including the 9th SADC Industrialisation Week in Durban, where she showcased what's possible when an entrepreneur roots their business in identity and purpose.
From entrepreneur to mentor, beneficiary to builder of other beneficiaries Kedibone embodies the cycle we hope to see in every founder who passes through our programmes.
On Friday, 28 August, during Women’sMonth, Kedibone also hosted our new European Union-funded Civil Society Organisations (CSO) Programme workshop in Mpumalanga, as one of Oribi’s implementing partners of the programme.
The programme brings stakeholders together to strengthen civil society, support youth-led enterprises and cooperatives, and promote sustainable development through green agri-food systems and solidarity economies.
This Heritage Month, we celebrate entrepreneurs like Kedibone: builders who don't just carry heritage forward, but turn it into opportunity for the generations coming up behind them.
