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The Venda of Zimbabwe

The Venda of Zimbabwe, numbering approximately 120,000 people, are No Longer Unreached. They are ancestrally linked to the Karanga Shona founders of Zimbabwe's Thulamela kingdom, a hilltop stone capital above the Luvuvhu River flourishing from roughly 1240 to 1700, whose rulers were forebears of the later Venda kingdom across the South African border. They mostly adhere to Animism and Venda is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Venda

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Zimbabwe
People Cluster: Bantu, Southeastern
Primary Language(s): Venda (ven)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 120,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): No Longer Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): 2% or Greater but Less than 5% Evangelical
People Group ID: PG015684
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Pray for the Venda of Zimbabwe

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Pray Now!
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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

58%
%
Animism Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Venda
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

100%
%
Venda Speakers

Media Resources in Venda:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film

1 film

Provided by the Jesus Film Project

View all resources

Bible Resources in Venda:

No Bible resources are listed for this language.

Provided by Faith Comes by Hearing

Or check out the Venda bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

View all resources

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Venda are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Venda:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Venda of Zimbabwe

For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm!
readPsalm 47:7

Pray for those who live for idols that will never satisfy their hearts, asking that someone will tell them that God is the King of all the earth so that they will turn to Him in repentance and praise.

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
readJob 1:20-22

Pray that those who mourn will worship God in the midst of their suffering and loss, recognizing He is the source of all good things and that He is worthy of their praise and trust.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
readTitus 3:4-5

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ and might struggle with temptation to trust in their own works, they will remember that it is only because of God's mercy that they have been saved.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
readJohn 3:16

Pray that God will send and sustain believers to cross cultures and share the gospel with the lost. Ask that He will give them His heart for the lost and that many will believe in Him and not perish but have eternal life.

Venda Across Countries (ROP3 - 110546) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

2 people groups

PhotoPeople Group ID ▼NameCountryPopulationStrategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
VendaPG015684VendaZimbabwe120,000No Longer UnreachedVendaAnimism
VendaPG015546VendaSouth Africa1,255,000No Longer UnreachedVendaProtestantism

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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