ZERI Southern Africa was set up in 2004 with the main objective of responding to the needs of people with what they have.  Creating locally sustainable solutions that enables and empowers communities to work in harmony with nature is a big focus for ZERISA . Working for a deeper consciousness shift in the way we work with sustainability ,we focus on local indigenous knowledge systems, integrating these into our work with youth, local communities and NGOs. We do beleive that while integrating sustainability from a local, decentralised perspective must make economic sense, it must also be rooted in the common sense wisdom derived from local traditions and lessons learnt by observing loal eco-systems.