From street smarts to book smarts

MORNINGSIDE-BASED non-profit organisation I Care supports, rehabilitates and educates street children through outreach work, and their three-pronged rehabilitation programme has transformed the lives of hundreds of boys living on the streets for more than 22 years.

Twenty-one-year-old Nhlanhla Zondo is one of the organisation’s shining successes, and he spoke with Berea Mail about his journey from being on the streets to getting through his first year of tertiary studies.

Zondo says he started coming to I Care in 2017. “I had been staying with my family in Bergville, then there came a time when there were too many kids in the house. I was a naughty boy when I was younger, and I ended up being on the streets at the age of 13.”

Zondo said his life on the streets was challenging. “It wasn’t easy for me to survive because I was young at the time, and then, I met someone who referred me to I Care. They made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be on the streets, and that’s when I started to realise that I really wasn’t coping well with life on the streets – it all hit me how hard my life had been for the years I had been homeless. It’s rough out there.”

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“At I Care, they provided me with a lot of things that I needed, and it made me realise that it’s better to be working with them than to live the life I was living. I was hustling in South Beach when I was on the streets, but I always used to sleep around North Beach because it was safer. During the night, I was in North Beach and during the day I was in South Beach. A lot of my friends were dying; a lot of street kids are killed and taken advantage of. It was a scary place, even during the day,” said Zondo.

Zondo said the days he would visit I Care’s drop-in centre in Morningside, where the boys are provided with care and meals and participate in recreational activities, was a lucky break for him. “After three months, I went into their rehabilitation programme in Amanzimtoti. A lot of boys failed that stage because they were addicted to drugs. I hadn’t taken drugs in my life. Even though it was hard because they give you an idea of the work you need to do in the rehabilitation phase, and you have to prove to them that you can do the work to be a better person, I stayed there for six months, and then we had our graduation to move to our next phase.”

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Zondo explained that there are three stages at I Care. “First, you visit the drop-in centre in Morningside where we went to for three months, then it’s the rehabilitation programme and then, lastly, the level where you either go home and go to school or you go to the housing they provide for us and go to school while living there.”

“I’m now 21 years old. I was able to finish my matric with the help of I Care, and now, I am attending PAX College in Berea, studying a three-year Human Resources course. I went back to school, starting at Grade Nine in 2018, and then I did grades 9 to 12 in four years, from 2018 to 2021. In 2021, I moved back home to Bergville, and now, I stay at a church in Adams Mission – that is near Amanzimtoti,” said Zondo.

Zondo says that, for him, I Care took the full responsibility of being his parent. “The standard of being at I Care is sometimes better than being at home for a lot of us, and they teach us rules that we can live by, and at the end of the day, those rules help us grow and open our minds. Where I came from, in my family, if I had stayed, I wouldn’t have survived.”

Zondo is now studying towards his Diploma in Human Resources at PAX College in Berea.

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