17-year-old Ivory Park resident has a dream
Seventeen-year-old has a big dream for his community.
Tshepiso Malema (17), from Ivory Park Chris Hani Section, hopes to eradicate poverty and create employment for the townships of South Africa.
According to the Ivory Park Secondary School Grade 11 learner, many South Africans tend to rely on the government to provide everything for them.
He was born into a family of three. His father died in 2016 when Malema was in Grade Nine.
He said he has been passionate about entrepreneurship from the days he sold ice at school to save up some pocket money. Malema said he has a vision to create gaming centres for the youth in townships, where they will be entertained and will keep out of trouble. The gaming facility will create employment as there will be security and gaming assistants needed.
“Since it is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we need to shift our focus to technological methods to better our skills and equip ourselves for the future.
“There are children who cannot afford to play PlayStation with the latest games. Now they can have access to it in their backyards,” said Malema.
“Another reason why many of our youth fall into drugs is that they tend to bottle things up. I would love to change that by creating a foundation that hosts guest speakers, social workers and career advisers to mentor the youth,” explained Malema.
The 17-year-old is a top achiever at Ivory Park Secondary School. He says he started to look at life from a different perspective when he was in Grade 10.
“There was an African Bank competition for schools and my school took part in it. We did not win anything in the competition, but I learnt a lot as the competition required us to identify a problem within our community and solve it as entrepreneurs,” said Malema.
Malema also said he has been approaching different stakeholders for funding of his visions without any luck, but he is not quitting.
“Gaming helps you relax and de-stress and the support of my mom and sister strengthens me to remain motivated in achieving my goal.
“I have been attending business workshops, conferences and seminars to meet the right people. One of them is my mentor, Emmanuel Bonoko, founder of Emmanuel Bonoko Foundation and EBonoko Holdings Ltd,” said Malema.
“I use social media to convey a positive message as my mentor says ‘use social media to impact, not to impress’ and I do just that,” added Malema.
The Ivory Park youngster said he wishes to study software engineering after matric at the University of Pretoria or at the University of Cape Town.
