Annual Residential Retreats · Application-Based
Three days.
Real conversations . the trajectory.
A child who returns SEEING themselves.
Not a camp. Not a conference. A residential experience where teenagers step away from everything familiar, find their voice, and encounter who they are becoming.
Over 20 residential retreats delivered across South Africa. Three streams. Maximum 15 participants each. Grounded in Ubuntu philosophy and the Five Pillars Framework™ — designed for the young person who is ready to know themselves.
"The teenage years are not a problem to be managed.
They are a season to be met
with the right container."
For over 30 years, Nomveliso Mbanga has been sitting in rooms with teenagers who feel unseen by the very people who love them most. Not because their parents don't love them. But because no one gave the parents the tools either.
The residential retreat was built to close that gap. In three days of immersive, facilitated community, a teenager is given something rare: the space to stop performing and the tools to start becoming.
Every retreat is led by Nomveliso herself. Maximum 15 participants. The limitation is not logistical. It is intentional.
The Mayine Standard
We do not choose cheap venues. We never have. Not because we are extravagant — because we are deliberate.
Every Mayine retreat is held in a four or five-star space. Great food. Great comfort. Every detail attended to. This is not a luxury add-on. It is the work itself.
Against a history in which Black children have been placed in spaces that told them they did not matter, we place them deliberately in spaces that tell them they do. When a teenager sleeps in a beautiful room, eats excellent food, and is treated with the kind of honour that wealth takes for granted — they carry a new internal reference point. A felt, lived memory of what a great life could feel like. That is what we are building: the inner semblance of a life worth inhabiting.
What makes it irreplaceable
I
Parents are not present — by design
The retreat is one of the few spaces in a teenager's life where they exist entirely without their parents. No parent to read. No family role to perform. No familiar scaffolding.
When a teenager walks into a room where no one knows them, they encounter something rare: themselves. The retreat builds courage and resilience specifically because it is an uncharted space. The self-trust that comes from surviving it is not taught. It is earned.
II
Every teenager has a voice
Groups are capped at 15. Not for logistics — for voice.
We do not run a retreat where some teenagers speak and others observe. Every participant has a voice in every conversation. The facilitation is built around this. The group size protects it.
When a teenager leaves, they will have been heard. Genuinely heard. Not as part of an audience — as a person with something worth saying. For many, it is the first time.
III
Lived community — not a classroom
The retreat is not a series of sessions. It is an events-driven community experience.
Shared meals. Shared responsibilities — teenagers take on roles within the community itself. Shared nighttime activities. Industry guest speakers who speak not from a curriculum but from a real life, a real journey, a real arrival.
What teenagers remember is often not the session content. It is the meal they helped prepare. The conversation that happened at midnight. The speaker who said the thing they had never heard an adult say aloud.
Four and five-star, always.
When someone suggests we choose a cheaper venue, the answer is no. Not from pride — from principle. The quality of the physical space communicates something to a teenager that no session can: you are worth this.
We come from a history in which Black children were placed in the lowest of spaces and told to be grateful. Mayine retreats are a deliberate reversal of that script. Every detail — the room, the food, the service, the comfort — is chosen to give teenagers a felt experience of what excellence feels like from the inside.
When they later envision their future, they have a semblance of it. Not just an aspiration — a memory.
4 – 5★
Venue standard — every retreat, always
15
Maximum participants — by design, not circumstance
3 days
Residential — away from home, fully immersed
19+
Retreats facilitated over Nomveliso's career
STARTS YOUR BOOKING PROCESS
Important Dates To Honor & Remember - a Deposit secures Your Spot
Our Booking Process
Retreat Booking Process
To help every family feel informed, secure, and supported from the very first inquiry through to the moment your teenager comes home — here is how our booking journey works.
Once you receive retreat dates or send an inquiry, you are welcome to schedule a brief phone call or online meeting with us first.
This gives you the opportunity to verify our credibility, ask any questions, and feel genuinely comfortable before making any commitment or payment. We welcome this conversation — it is part of how we begin well.
To reserve your teenager's place, a deposit of R5,500 is required. This confirms their spot and is non-refundable.
- All payments are made directly into our official bank account only. Banking details will be sent to you by Penny via our official email address.
- We never accept cash payments or Cash Send transactions under any circumstances.
- We will never request payment via WhatsApp — any such request is fraudulent and should be reported to us immediately.
- Once your payment is received, you will always receive an official confirmation or proof of receipt from our registered email address for your records.
After your booking is confirmed, parents will schedule a brief pre-retreat session of approximately 10–30 minutes with our team.
This session helps us better understand your teenager, your family context, and the kind of support that would best serve them. It is part of how we thoughtfully customise the retreat experience — so that your child does not arrive as a stranger, but as someone we already know something about.
Approximately two weeks before the retreat, you will receive a full boarding package containing everything you need to prepare your teenager for the weekend.
- Packing list
- Venue directions and arrival details
- Retreat guidelines and what to expect
- Additional preparation information for both parent and teenager
For all retreats, parents or guardians must personally drop off and personally collect their teenager. No exceptions.
On the final day, we host a comprehensive 2-hour parent feedback session before collection — interactive, practical, and an important part of the overall retreat process and your teenager's transition home. This session is for you. Come ready to learn.
Thank you for trusting us with your teenager's growth and development journey. Every step of this process has been designed with your family's safety, confidence, and experience at the centre.
A private Post-Retreat
Parent Debrief Session —
complimentary.
After the group feedback session at camp, parents often leave with something stirred — a question they did not want to ask in the room, an insight that needs unpacking privately, a next step they are not sure how to take.
This is your space for that conversation. A private 45-minute session with Nomveliso, held within 6 days of your retreat closing — while everything is still alive and your teenager's experience is fresh in the room between you.
You leave with a clear picture of where your teenager is, what they worked through at camp, and exactly how to hold them well from here.
deposit bookings per retreat
- Available to the first 6 parents who confirm their deposit payment for each retreat — per retreat, not across the season
- Session must be booked and held within 6 days of your retreat closing — this window exists so that the insights are still fresh and the support is most effective
- 45 minutes, held via video call, with Nomveliso Mbanga directly
- Sessions are not held on active retreat days — your window begins the day after your retreat closes
- Once the 6 places are confirmed, this benefit closes for that retreat — no exceptions
This session remains available to all parents after the Early Bird window closes. Post-Retreat Parent Debrief Sessions are available at R3,500 — contact Penny to book.
Available to all · R3,500The experience
What happens in
three days.
The retreat is not a camp. It is a structured, facilitated identity journey — three days that move from roots to excellence to integration. Every session is purposeful. Every moment is held.
Day One
Arrival and identity anchoring
Who Am I?
Where Do I Come From?
How Do I Belong?
Roots. Identity. Ubuntu philosophy. Cultural grounding and the family system. A day of arrival — into the space, and into themselves.
Teenagers arrive into a space where no one knows them and no one has a pre-formed version of who they are. The first evening is about the self — who they are, not who the world has cast them as. Facilitated by Nomveliso using the Nomveliso Mbanga Teencoaching™ methodology, this opening creates the conditions for everything that follows.
For many participants, Day One is the first time they have been in a room where everyone in it is doing the same work. The isolation breaks down faster than they expect.
Day Two
Emotional intelligence and peer dynamics
I Can Excel.
I Lead Myself.
I Am Becoming.
Academic excellence. Self-leadership. Voice. A day of expansion — discovering what becomes possible when you lead from the inside out.
The second day is where the real breakthroughs happen. Group work, shared meals, industry guest speakers, and the growing community of the retreat itself create a container where teenagers hear themselves in each other.
Guest speakers are selected specifically for this: highly experienced industry practitioners who speak not from a career template but from a real life — including its failures, its pivots, and its arrivals.
"You do not just receive your child back. You receive the tools to sustain what started."
Day Three
Self-leadership and the road ahead
I Know Who I Am.
I Go Back
Seeing Me.
Emotional intelligence. Integration. Ceremony. A day of return — carrying everything forward into real life, with parents welcomed back to close the circle.
The final day closes the circle. Each teenager leaves with clarity, a personal commitment, and a self-leadership plan shaped around their specific profile — their strengths, their growth edges, and the season they are in.
The retreat does not send teenagers home unchanged and hope for the best. It sends them home with tools, language, and a new internal reference point for who they are.
After the teenagers complete their three days, parents attend a dedicated two-hour training session with Nomveliso. This is not a debrief. It is a working session — on how to hold what your child has opened, on the patterns that most commonly undo retreat gains at home, and on what your child now needs from you that they may not yet have the language to ask for.
This session is included in every retreat. It is non-negotiable. It is the reason the work lasts.
2026 Retreat Streams
Which retreat is right for your child?
The framework and the five pillars are the same across every retreat. What differs is the developmental lens, the facilitation approach, and the specific conversations the cohort makes possible. Here is how to find the right fit.
Pre-Teens
Grades 5 – 7
Girls and boys together#Retreat20 · 31 Jul – 2 Aug · Johannesburg
Pre-teens are at the edge of adolescence — curious, forming, and more malleable than they will ever be again. This is the most strategic season to invest in.
At this age, girls and boys can share the same retreat space. Their emotional development, while beginning to diverge, is still close enough that a mixed group produces rich, natural conversation — and the work of identity anchoring is equally relevant to both.
The facilitation approach is age-appropriate: more play-based, more visual, more experiential. The coaching conversations are simpler in language and shorter in depth — not because pre-teens are less capable, but because we meet them exactly where they are.
Primary focus areas
Identity anchoring · Emotional vocabulary · Family roles · Peer dynamics · Self-leadership foundations
Teen Girls Only
Grades 8 – 11
Girls only#Retreat19 · 26 Jun · East London · Waitlist
When teenage girls are in a room without boys, something opens. The performance shifts. The competition for attention falls away. What remains is a group of young women who are willing to go much deeper, much faster.
When older girls and boys share a retreat space, girls tend to dominate the conversation — not from dominance, but from developmental readiness. This means the boys withdraw. Separating the cohorts protects both groups and makes the work richer for both.
The Teen Girls retreat goes into what is specific to the Black girl child in this season: the weight of being seen, the complexity of navigating femininity and ambition simultaneously, the family and community expectations that land differently on girls, and the identity work of knowing who you are before the world decides for you.
Primary focus areas
Voice and visibility · Feminine identity · Ambition without apology · Emotional intelligence · Sisterhood dynamics
A note on the cohort design
The decision to separate older teens by gender is not about division — it is about depth. Three days is a short window. Every facilitation choice is made to maximise what is possible within it. Mixed cohorts for pre-teens work because their developmental stage allows it. Separate cohorts for older teens work because their developmental stage requires it. The philosophy is identical across all three retreats. Only the container changes.
Pillar II
Intellectual Growth
Pillar I
Emotional Intelligence
Pillar IV
Family Dynamics
Pillar III
Indigenous Identity
Teen Boys Only
Grades 8 – 11
Boys only#Retreat21 · 4–6 Sep · Johannesburg
When older teenage boys are in a mixed group with girls, they withdraw. Not from lack of capacity — from social conditioning that tells them vulnerability in front of girls is dangerous. The result is that the most important conversations never happen.
In a boys-only space, facilitated by someone who understands the specific terrain of the Black boy child, something different becomes possible. Boys who would not speak in a mixed room begin to speak. Boys who have been performing toughness begin to put it down.
We have only three days. Combining cohorts at this age produces conversations that are too broad, too careful, and too surface-level to create real change. Separating them allows us to go exactly where the work needs to go — into what is specific, honest, and necessary for the boy child in this season.
Primary focus areas
Emotional permission · Black boy identity · Leadership and accountability · Vulnerability as strength · Brotherhood dynamics
Pillar V
Self-Leadership Excellence
For Parents · Day Three
The session that makes
the retreat stick.
What happens in the retreat room stays with your child. What happens in the parent session determines whether those changes take root at home. This two-hour session is the integration bridge between who your child was when they arrived and who they are when they come home.
Compulsory · All Parents & Guardians
Parent Feedback & Integration Session
On Day Three, while participants have their final lunch together, parents and guardians gather for a two-hour facilitated session. This is not a debrief. It is an equipping. You leave knowing exactly what your child experienced, what came up for them, and — most importantly — what you can do at home to hold the growth that happened here.
"The retreat changes them in the room. You change what happens when they walk back through your door."
When Day Three · While participants lunch
Duration 2 hours
Format Group · Facilitated by Nomveliso Mbanga
Investment Included in retreat fee
Attendance Compulsory
Optional · One-on-One
Individual Parent Feedback Session
For parents with a genuine medical or personal emergency who missed the group session, or whose child's situation requires a specialised, confidential one-on-one conversation. This is a dedicated session with Nomveliso Mbanga tailored specifically to your child's retreat experience and your family's next steps.
R3,500 | Per session · Payable to confirm booking
Please Note
The group session cannot be replicated privately.
The power comes from all parents in the room together — the collective insight, the peer reflection, the shared experience. The one-on-one option is available for genuine exceptions only, not as an alternative to attendance. Please make every effort to be present on Day Three.
◆Attendance is compulsory at registration. When you enrol your child in a Mayine retreat, you commit to attending this session. It cannot be completed after the retreat — the integration conversation happens in real time, as a live bridge between your child's experience and your home. Exceptions are considered only in cases of genuine medical emergency.
Regional Retreats COMING Soon
If the retreat is not the right fit right now.
One-on-one
Premium coaching with Nomveliso
From R8,500 / month
For the family where one child needs the full attention of one coach. Fully bespoke. Built around this child specifically. Nomveliso holds a small, private caseload. Intake is not always open.
Group coaching
Quarterly programme by region
R1,950 / quarter
Led by Licensed Associate Teencoaches™. Tracked development across academic, leadership, and self-leadership dimensions. Pre-teens, teenagers, young adults, and parents. Four regions.
Community
WhatsApp self-leadership community
R300 / month
For the self-led teenager who thrives in community. Weekly challenges, goal-setting marathons, peer competitions, and voice notes / monthly pre-recorded videos from Nomveliso. Open year-round.
"Roots. Identity. Excellence.
Three days that will plant a lifetime seed & them feeling SEEN."
— Nomveliso Mbanga