Publications
Partners
There is hope for young people in KwaZulu-Natal who drop out of university or college because they are unable to pass or cannot pay for their tuition.
Through nonprofit organisation Ignite Young Minds SA and thanks to three young professionals – Bandile Mathebula, Zinhlezonke Tshabalala and Siyabonga Mhlanga – young people have been afforded an opportunity to consider alternative ways to live.
The three founded the organisation in 2016 after deciding to use their own professional connections to help those in need of mentorship and an interest in specific careers.
Thandazani Zulu (21), who was born into a poor family in Empangeni, benefited from the organisation when she started her catering business in 2016.
She wanted to pay for her first year at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Pietermaritzburg campus, where she would study for a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
Without her paying a cent, the organisation marketed her business and helped with publicity on radio and in newspapers.
“I started by selling muffins around campus to raise funds for my fees, rent and groceries. So Ignite Young Minds interviewed me right when I started introducing food platters, which I believe needed more marketing and advertising for the business to grow,” Zulu said.
“They wrote a story that reached quite a number of people, who ended up as my customers. This exposed me to different people to do business with. And then I continued to grow the business by doing events and catering for year-end functions, corporate functions and other events.”
Zulu tells her story at these events to empower other young people by inspiring and sharing her entrepreneurship ideas with them.
Part of the story is that she started her business with only R300.
“I basically tell them that you don’t have to wait for funding. It’s all about using what you have to get what you don’t have. That will help with handling each and every cent coming in and out,” she said.
Her company is registered and she plans to bid for government catering tenders.
Mathebula (25), co-founder and vice-chairperson at Ignite Young Minds, said he was born in eMathondwane village in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, and matriculated from Ladysmith High School in 2011.
He came from a family that did not have much, but managed to provide for his needs, including a good education and a comfortable home to live in.
Mathebula said that he, Tshabalala and Mhlanga formed the organisation with the intention of bridging the gap for college and university drop-outs, to help youngsters to avoid falling into a “profession cluster” (everybody aiming for the same career) and to help reduce the youth unemployment rate.
“We help them with career and subject choices by providing mentorship programmes connecting them to industry professionals who are already in their respective industries,” he said.
“We saw that young people were having a hard time completing their studies, which leads to them abandoning university or college, so we came together and did some research to find out how we could assist. That’s when we decided to focus more on career choices, because that is where it all starts.”
The three also run Sibizi Media, a digital media agency, which generates revenue to support their nonprofit organisation.
“And, of course, we had to use some money from our own pockets to get it off the ground, but the joy of seeing young people prosper and making the most of their potential is what adds to the drive to take on this project,” Mathebula said.
He added that youngsters who were underprivileged struggled due to a lack of knowledge about the different opportunities available to them.
“So we want to bring information and knowledge to them by going to schools and educating pupils about the opportunities they either did not know of or took lightly because of the stigma around choosing a career that is out of the norm, or somewhat unknown,” Mathebula said.
“We try to ease the pressure that comes with not being accepted to study the usual subjects – such as medicine, law and engineering – by educating them about the alternatives that they can look into. We are just creatives in construction, trying to make tomorrow count today.”
