Durban University of Technology (DUT) alumnus Wandile Mthiyane, together with his friend and community builder Tshepo Mathekga, will embark on a gruelling 1600 km walk from Durban to Cape Town on 16 June 2026, advocating for dignified housing in South Africa.
Titled Walk for Home, the journey will see them cover approximately 27 km daily, over 60 consecutive days, without any rest days. This endurance challenge aims to highlight South Africa’s housing crisis while raising funds for Ubuntu Home, a platform that enables people to design, finance and build homes with dignity.
For Mthiyane, who hails from KwaMashu in Durban, the initiative is deeply personal. As the founder of The Anti-Racist Chef and an Obama Leader, his work is grounded in lived experience and a commitment to driving meaningful social change.
One of those experiences was the painful loss of his late aunt, Ntombi Khanyile, who waited decades for adequate housing.
“This walk is for her and for every South African still living in conditions that do not uphold their dignity. My aunt passed away last month in the same mud-brick house she was born in, after 25 years on a housing waiting list. I am walking because dignity should not be something people wait decades for,” he said.
Mathekga joins the journey not only as a friend but as a reflection of the reality faced by many young people in South Africa today. Despite holding a master’s degree from the University of Michigan in the USA, he remains unemployed.
“I am walking with Wandile because I want to be the change I want to see. We are a generation that has done everything we were told would lead to opportunity, education, hard work and sacrifice, yet we are still waiting. I refuse to accept that this is where it ends,” he said.
Mthiyane studied Town and Regional Planning at DUT in 2012, gaining a systems-level understanding of how land, infrastructure and policy shape people’s lives. He later completed a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Architecture in the United States.
His academic journey has now led to his admission into Harvard University’s Master in Design Engineering programme, a highly selective programme with an acceptance rate of approximately 3 percent, admitting only 25 students globally each year.
The programme integrates design, artificial intelligence, engineering and systems thinking to help develop real-world solutions to complex societal challenges. It equips leaders to understand problems holistically, imagine new possibilities and build scalable solutions that can influence policy, industry and communities worldwide.
Mthiyane will use this opportunity to further develop Ubuntu Home as his core project, leveraging advancements in AI and technology to strengthen and scale the platform. His goal is to make it accessible to families in informal settlements, on communal land and to first-time home builders who are often excluded from formal systems.
For him, this journey is not just about academic advancement, it is about returning with the tools to create solutions that enable people to design, finance and build homes with dignity, regardless of their starting point.
His passion for this cause began in childhood. Growing up in a two-room home shared by six people, he experienced firsthand the challenges of inadequate housing. When it rained, water seeped through the walls and damp conditions contributed to his sister developing sinus issues. Limited space made studying difficult and the absence of a formal home address created barriers to accessing opportunities.
This experience shaped his purpose. As a student, he returned home and built a house for the Mtshali family in Umbumbulu after their home was destroyed in a storm. That project revealed a deeper issue, that even a well-designed house cannot overcome a broken system.
Ubuntu Home is therefore the result of over a decade of trying to answer one central question: how can dignified housing be made accessible at scale?
Explaining the significance of the route, Mthiyane said Durban represents where his story commenced. It is where he grew up in informal settlements and where his aunt waited more than 25 years for a government house she never received. It is a place where many families build homes without proper design or foundations and where floods continue to devastate communities.
According to the eThekwini Municipality’s 2025/2026 Integrated Development Plan, the housing backlog stands at approximately 474000 homes, affecting around 1.6 million people, nearly 42 percent of the city’s population. About 66 percent of this backlog is within informal settlements, with many others living in backyard dwellings, rural homes and temporary housing.
Cape Town, he explained, represents the other side of the crisis, one of the most unequal and unaffordable cities on the continent. “Thousands of people are still waiting for housing, often for more than 25 years, just like my aunt. At the same time, rising property prices, gentrification, and global demand have made it nearly impossible for the working class to access housing,” he said.
As a result, many families are pushed further away from economic opportunities, forced to travel long distances and spend a significant portion of their income on transport. This highlights two realities: in Durban, people are waiting for housing and in Cape Town, people are priced out of housing.
Mthiyane emphasised that walking the 1600 kilometres between the two cities is both symbolic and strategic. It connects these realities while representing a bridge between his lived experience and his academic journey to Harvard, where he will be among 25 global participants developing solutions to challenges like this.
“This walk is about closing that gap and turning this opportunity into something that serves millions of South Africans,” he said.
Walking 1600 kilometres over 60 days, the equivalent of approximately 40 marathons, reflects the lived reality of many South Africans who wait decades for housing, travel long distances daily and navigate systems that often fail them.
More than just a symbolic act, the initiative serves as a mobile research and engagement platform. Along the route, Mthiyane will engage directly with communities to better understand their housing conditions and lived experiences, test elements of the Ubuntu Home platform in real time, gather insights to inform more responsive solutions and host workshops and discussions.
He will also visit schools to inspire young people to see themselves as agents of change, encouraging them to shape their own environments and learn how to build sustainable futures.
Pictured: DUT alumnus Wandile Mthiyane.
Vukani Langa
