PROJECTS: LIMPOPO PROVINCE

• VALDEZIA MISSION STATION

The Valdezia Mission Station is situated south-east of Louis Trichardt in the Soutpansberg District.  It was founded in 1875 by two theological students, Henri [Paul] Bertroud and Ernst Creux.  The two had obtained permission to purchase the farm, Klipfontein, from a Scot, J. Watt, in 1874, on which they established the station.

Alexis Thomas, an artisan and missionary, was responsible for the buildings, gardens and day to day functions of the Mission. The Swiss Mission complex consists of Elim Hospital, Old Valdezia School, Lemana College, Elim Mission Church, Elim Mill and a dam, as well other historical buildings.

Apparently, the mass movement of the Tsonga into that area from Mozambique, was mainly because of the Mfecane-Difaqane upheavals which were unleashed from Zululand. The power struggle among the sons of Soshangane, a Tsonga chief, also added to those migrations of the Tsonga.

Among the first Christian converts of the Swiss Mission among the Tsonga was Shisozwele and his family. Shisowele was the father to Shiambane, who was the grandmother of the well-known Marivate family. The missionaries continued to teach in that area, and when the congregations increased, a church was built and subsequently the mission station became a centre for development of the area. The church was actually designed and constructed in 1886, two years after the building of a mission house in 1884. The post office, was only built in 1945.

The Valdezia primary school was erected in 1888 and among those who attended the school include D Marivate (poet, school teacher and composer), Dr Manghezi (Development Bank of southern Africa), C Marivate (parliamentarian) and T Mandlate (a minister who started a church in Maputo). Before the arrival of the Swiss Missionaries in the area, there were no schools, churches, colleges, clinics or hospitals in the area. The pioneering work of the Swiss Missionaries is still visible in the area today.

Under the previous dispensation, the responsibility to manage heritage resources fell within the competence of the National Monuments Act (Act No. 28 of 1969). According to the provision of Section 10(1) of this Act, Dr. Baldwin Sipho Ngubane, as Minister of Arts Culture Science and Technology, declared the Valdezia Mission Station as a national monument in 1999.