Amandawe, also known as Amandawe Mission, is a small township on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa, situated on the banks of the Mandawe River, a tributary of the Mpambanyoni River.
The township’s name, Amandawe, is a Zulu word relating to the ancestors, because of the community’s belief in ancestors.
The township is mostly populated with Black Africans and falls within the uMdoni Local Municipality, which is part of the Ugu District Municipality.
Amandawe township is surrounded by neighboring populated areas such as Scottburgh, Amahlongwa, KwaCele, Dududu, Freeland Park, Park Rynie, and Renishaw Hills.
Location
Amandawe lies along the P197-3 and P188 roads and is located approximately 59 km southwest of Durban in eThekwini and 72 km north-east of Port Shepstone.
History
Amandawe was a sugarcane farm before developing into a township. An ethnobotanical survey conducted in the area by Ben-Erik van Wyk showed that the use of medicinal plants had remained popular for historical and ancestral reasons, thus the town was named for Ancestry.
On 19 May 2018, about 1,500 people blocked the P188 road with rocks, trees, and burning tires to protest what they called the abandonment of the township by Umdoni Local Municipality.
The township was previously governed by the defunct local municipality, namely Vulamehlo Local Municipality. The Cele Traditional Council also controlled it, but is now mostly controlled by white people due to modernisation.
