City businessman to help matric realise dream
January 03, 2005 Edition 1
Dudu Busani
Durban: Cape Town businessman Marcel Joubert, touched by the plight of a KwaZulu-Natal matriculant who dreams of being a chartered accountant, is to pay for the youth's studies.
Fanele Ndwandwe, 20, who beat the odds to pass with four distinctions and three Bs, would have been unable to attend university as his parents have no money.
Ndwandwe, who lives in a rondavel with his parents, said he had studied by candlelight until the early hours and during the day helped his father plough fields and herd cows.
Joubert, founder and chief executive officer of the Platinum Group, which owns a chain of clothing stores, said he was touched by Ndwandwe's plight, which he read about in a newspaper while flying back to Cape Town after a business trip to Durban.
"As I read the report, I saw myself 22 years ago, a young boy from a rural village in the Transvaal, having passed matric with six distinctions. My parents had not even a cent so I could further my studies.
"I may be the owner of more than five of the most successful clothing stores in the country now, but I put myself through the University of Cape Town by selling T-shirts."
Ndwandwe earned distinctions in business economics, accounting, economics and Zulu.
In a few weeks he is to leave the rural village of Ngome in northern KwaZulu-Natal and take an all-expenses-paid trip to Rhodes University to study for a degree.
All his first-year expenses, including R18 000 tuition fees, R13 000 residence fees and R3 000 for textbooks, will be paid for. He will also receive a computer and a R2 500 clothing voucher.
Ndwandwe said he wanted to be a chartered accountant because only 198 of the 20 000 chartered accountants in South Africa were black. He wanted to be one of the few.
"I cannot express the way I feel. A few days ago I could see my dreams of being something in this world all shattered, but now I am ready to work even harder to fulfil them," he said.
His overjoyed mother, Thulabona Ndwandwe, could not hold back her tears. "God must have heard my crying."
