“My struggles don’t define me”, Athenkosi Ngqunguza. Photo by Anelisa Tyobeka.
9 October 2013
At this time of the year, grade 12 learners are busy preparing for their final exams; an exciting but stressful time in their lives. For 21-year-old Athenkosi Ngqunguza, a grade 12 learner from Thembelihle High School in Khayelitsha, studying is not the only challenge he faces. He has been living alone since he was 19, with no adult supervision or financial support, yet he has still remained one of the top students in his school.
Ngqunguza’s mother passed away when he was in grade 5. “I was forced to drop out of school and go back to the Eastern Cape and stay with my grandmother. My parents were separated before my mother passed, so when she died, my father took me and my siblings to stay with him. Within a space of a year, my father passed away after a long illness, my oldest sister also passed away the same year, and my aunt took me and my two sisters in.”
“We then stayed with her. One of my sisters got married and it was now only me and my younger sister staying with my aunt and her children. When I was doing grade 9, I started looking for a job as there were now disputes in the family, and I felt that my aunt couldn’t take care of me, my sister and children of her own.”
In 2011, Ngqunguza found a part-time job at a supermarket, where he works afternoons from Friday to Sunday and still manages to make time to study for three hours every day. He built himself a shack in Endlovini, an informal settlement in Harare, Khayelitsha, and now lives there on his own.
“People thought my situation would distract me from my studies, but it has actually made me more driven,” said Ngqunguza.
Mbuyie Hlomela, a teacher from Thembelihle High School, said, “His situation doesn’t define him or dismantle him. He is a very diligent, focused and hardworking student. He is a very quiet young man and his work does the talking for him … I remember the first time I was marking his script, I couldn’t wait to see the brains behind the handwriting I was marking.”
Ngqunguza founded the study group Masakhane (let’s build each other), where he tutors other students. He says the more he taught other students the more knowledge he gained. He is also active in the Peace Club at his school which monitors problems learners may have at school and in the community.
Mthuthuzeli Siyonzana, a history teacher from Thembelihle High School, said: “Athenkosi is a flexible student. Last year, he entered an oral history competition, even though I told him about it very late, and he won the Mitchell’s Plain competition and went on to represent Cape Town in Pretoria where he made it to the top ten.”
Athenkosi says that even though things are sometimes difficult for him now, he is confident life will get better. He is hoping to study law and has applied to a number of universities.