The seeds of UbuntuTogether were planted when Nathan reconnected with and introduced Jacob to South African friends within the Zulu community on a vacation in the summer of 2024.

Although the visit was brief, this relationship blossomed remotely over the next year, with Zulu community leader Gerald Goba communicating a need for a new church within the Inanda township. Jacob, along with his fiance Kinsley, both students of architecture, decided to take on this design challenge.

In the summer of 2025, Nathan, Jacob, and Kinsley returned to South Africa to dig deeper into the design process by meeting with crucial community stakeholders. There, we learned that the needs of the community extended far beyond a singular building, or a singular effort by a group of Americans. While architecture certainly has the ability to encourage change, change is only actually carried out by people.

The African philosophy of UBUNTU expresses that our sense of indivualism, humanity, and personhood, exists only because of our relationships to other people: I am because we are. With this in mind, we became inspired to make change not only in the build environment, but in ways that would uplift and encourage entire communities: through intentional job creation, education programs, financial literacy, and more.

Currently, UBUNTUTogether is in the process of becoming a registered NGO so that we can join with others to achieve our goals.