When she started selling sweet potatoes and peanuts next to the busy Makonde road in 2002, Shumani Juliet Makungo’s eldest son was only three months old. Twenty years down the line, Shumani is still going strong, doing what she loves most, and making arrangements to enrol her son at an institution of higher learning next year. His tuition fees will be paid from the proceeds she earns from her small business.

It's midday on Friday, 4 June. Tawanda Chipfuyo sits on two bricks while crushing empty soda cans for recycling before he trolleys the recyclables to a scrapyard some kilometres from Louis Trichardt’s central business district (CBD).

A senior traditional leader, Thovhele Vho-Nthumeni Masia, warned the Vhembe District Municipality (VDM) that, as custodians of the communities, they were tired of hearing stories about water shortages around the district. He made an appeal to the municipality to work with traditional leaders to resolve water-related issues.

The search continues for the two gunmen who shot and killed a tavern assistant in cold blood in the early hours of Saturday, 18 June, at Tshiozwi village.

Valdezia residents barricaded roads leading from Elim to Vuwani early on Monday morning (20 June) in protest against poor service delivery. The protesters demanded regular clean water and an end to power outages at their village. They also took issue with the poor condition of roads and infrastructure.

As part of the implementation of their local economic development (LED) strategy to promote rural economies through informal trading, the Thulamela Local Municipality (TLM) has built 32 modern market stalls for the hawkers operating in front of the gate of the Donald Fraser Hospital in Vhufuli village, just outside Thohoyandou.

Police have opened a case of murder and an inquest after another man, this time from Maelula village, allegedly stabbed his wife to death before hanging himself on Wednesday, 15 June.

Three painful months of waiting have passed for the Mathivha family of Lwamondo Ha Gelebe, who still believe that their departed son will come back to them from the dead.

The scourge of illegal sand mining is leaving a path of destruction in the Vhembe area. Not only the environment gets destroyed by the illegal miners, but also the hopes and dreams of subsistence farmers in remote rural areas.

Former Umkhonto We Sizwe Commander Amos Mbedzi was buried during a very tense and heart-breaking funeral service held at Makonde Sports Grounds on Sunday morning.

The newly elected provincial secretary of the African National Congress (ANC), Vhamusanda Vho-Reuben Madadzhe, promised better leadership and that they would keep all municipalities on their toes to improve service delivery to the rural communities.