MANDLA HELPS ALL

Some people dedicate their lives trying to better the lives of others and some spend their lives working hard to uplift their communities while others are a combination of the two.
We all have dreams of becoming a doctor, a teacher or just to have a stable career and few of us end up following that childhood dream.
Mr Mandla Mphuthi is one of the people known in Sakhile for his community involvement.
Mr Mphuthi volunteers his time to help direct traffic at funerals in Sakhile every weekend.
He helps ease the chaos of traffic and directs people during funerals because some weekends there is more than one funeral and people tend to get confused.
“I sometimes attend five to eight funerals in one weekend,” he said.
Mr Mphuti has been doing this work for more than 24 years.
According to him, he does this from his own pocket and uses his own petrol.
“No one is paying me, I just do it because I have realised that many people struggle at funerals,” he said.
The reason he began doing this was because of his involvement with community safety.
Mr Mphthi matriculated at Jandrell Secondary School in 1987.
He wanted to become an accountant, but the political violence of 1986 put an end to it.
While he was a pupil at the school, he joined a student organisation, Congress of South African Students (COSAS).
“The violence later spread from the school to the community,” he said.
Problems worsened in 1986 and he became more involved in politics and joined the United Democratic Front (UDF) and with other members formed the Sakhile Youth Congress.
“My vision of becoming an accountant was completely lost,” he said.
Mr Mputhi was involved in the local peace committee that negotiated for cooperation between the different political parties to restore peace and stability within communities.
All the violence changed his mindset and made him realise that something needs to be done to improve the safety of resident in town.
“I began involving myself more with community safety issues in 1992 and began a branch of the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of Offenders, better known as NICKO.
“The organisation only had branches in Johannesburg and Cape Town,” he said.
According to Mr Mphuthi, the objectives of the organisation were to deal with crime offenders and prevention of crime.
Many people were killed due to the political violence and they encouraged the community to create self-defence units that were patrolling the streets and keeping their neighbourhoods safe.
Mr Mphuthi found time to direct the traffic on weekends during funerals.
“All this began because of the violence we experienced in the past,” he said.
Mr Mphuthi could easily have forgotten about everything else and focused on his career, but his love for community safety kept him going.

And that is why he is still committed in ensuring community safety.
Mr Mphuthi was recently appointed as chairman of the Standerton Hospital Board.