A resident is going against the stream, blind to skin colour even though he has been subjected to racism and refusing to be just another casualty of an unhappy childhood.

Phathizwe Mabuza is passionate about changing mindsets, one child at a time. His passion has landed him in a spot as a national tennis coach.

For him, change starts with creating an identity in someone, seeing a human instead of skin colour, adjusting your attitude and by doing everything you do with a ‘spirit of excellence’.

In 1993 Phathizwe had the rug pulled from under him when as a boy, he lost his father and house on the same day.

“My mother was teaching near Groblersdal and my father was working at Columbus. One day he just got up and left. We got home to find the house empty and he was gone.”

As if that was not bad enough, a man called and told them to move out of the house because he bought it from their father.

“We went from living in a three bedroom house to sharing a cramped house with my cousins and moving around a lot.”

Phathizwe’s uncle, Isaac Khumalo, a teacher at Mphanama, took over the role of a mentor.

“He taught us manners and gave you a hiding when you needed it. He just stepped in and was there for us,” Phathizwe remembers.

His mother, Nomthandazo Khumalo, a qualified teacher, struggled to find a job. She started selling everything from curtains to polony to keep her family afloat and could buy them their own house again in 1997.

“She taught us that the world does not owe you anything. We definitely got our entrepreneurship and leadership skills from her.”

It was also his uncle that introduced Phathizwe to tennis, a sport he took to like a duck to water.

“The great thing was that I could walk onto a tennis court with only a racket and a bottle of tap water and I could win against a kid with all the luxuries and his whole family there to support him.”

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Phathizwe said that he has always seen other’s privilege and fortune as a motivator.

“Instead of moaning about how unfair it is that I don’t have it, it made me work harder so I can also get it. I also wanted my children to be privileged. The greatest privilege of all is having a family. ”

He became the first black player in the West Mpumalanga team and later the provincial team. He worked as an assistant tennis coach in Middelburg before starting his own tennis academy. Many people told him that it was madness to think that a black coach could make it on his own in Middelburg.

“What I’ve come to realise is that beautiful beings connect no matter what. They don’t see colour. I have a passion for kids. I also understand that a child should compete against himself. If you get a child to realise that, he will be able to move mountains.”

Phatizwe recalls how the mother of a farm-attack-victim brought her son for lessons ever week, after he witnessed his father being killed.

“She brought him here not so much for tennis, but so that he can be reminded that not all black people are evil. If you do something to someone, you must remember that your actions will have an impact on them. For example, someone was put in a coffin. Political parties jumped at the opportunity for propaganda, but no one took care of the emotional side of things. Imagine that guy then goes and kills a farmer, in front of his child. The child then, in turn, grows up to hate a person of a certain colour because of what he has experienced. It is a vicious cycle that will keep on going if we don’t break it. And you break it when you refuse to become part of it,” Phathizwe says.

He is of the opinion that a lot in life depends on your identity and that identity is formed by being part of a family and especially having a father.

“Identity determines what you settle for. There are a lot of broken black families with absent fathers. Therefor there is also a lot of poverty. People don’t realise what they are capable of. Many walk around with the mindset ‘if only I had this then I could do that’. It is not the truth. You can do anything as long as you set your mind to it and grab the opportunities presented to you. Everyone gets opportunities, not many see them when they come because they are blind.”

“Black lives matter. Yes. But it does not help you go and protest about it at the Union Buildings when you are not even paying maintenance for your child. It starts at home. I want to make people realize that.”

Phathizwe is also involved with abused and abandoned children and gives counselling to them.

“I told them to remember that just because you are poor does not mean you have to get everything for free. How do we think we will have successful adults if we teach them they get everything without working for it until they are 18. Then all of a sudden we tell them now you must work for what you want. It does not make sense. We must change the youth’s perspective.”

He firmly believes that there is no space for pride in life. When the lockdown took away his source of income, he started delivering food to keep himself and his family afloat. He says his loving and supportive wife, Dimakatso Mabuza and loyal clients, some of them even paying their fees during the lockdown when tennis coaching was prohibited, made him once again realise how important relationships with other people are.

It is because of his own positive attitude and doing everything he does with a ‘spirit of excellence’ that so many doors have opened for Phathizwe.

He recalls meeting a man over a beer one day and just talking about life in general. He would later find out that it was the owner of a well-known chain of restaurants who eventually sponsored him to go to overseas for tennis because he ‘liked how I think’.

“I go for a tennis course at least once a year to better myself. I make sure that I give my all in everything I do. When Tennis SA was in urgent need of a tutor for a coaching training course, I left everything and went to help out. A week later I was invited to accompany the South African u/12 team to Italy. From there I have travelled to many places with them.”

He has since been to the United States, Egypt, Zimbabwe and Morocco thanks to his coaching position.

Not everyone was happy about his success. Phathizwe had another coach secretly film him overseas in an attempt to demerit his work and he has learnt about letters of protest written to Tennis SA about his involvement, seemingly without merit. Many are accusing him of acquiring the position purely because of his skin colour.

But instead of playing the race card and screaming racism, Phathizwe says that he chooses to tackle the person, not their hang-ups.

“When is it racism and when is it jealousy? I could ride on the racism train, but it will get me nowhere. It will only spread hate. Hate is such hard work. It makes you poor and it makes you sick. I will tackle the person, not the race.”

“We have lost compassion for humans. We must restore our families. We must also remember that good can come from anything bad. Just imagine my father never left. I might have grown up a spoilt entitled brat who never really achieved anything in life. The standard of the world will not interfere with God’s plans for you. God says ‘I will bless the work of your hands’ so I work, and He blesses me.”