Success Stories

Mzoxolo grew up in Khayelitsha and enrolled in the Amy Foundation’s hospitality programme in 2018. He didn’t know much about hospitality, but learned various culinary and entrepreneurial skills while at the foundation. “When I started here at the foundation I was so shy…when I was in the orientation I wouldn’t speak, I would just keep quiet even though I had questions I wanted to ask…But after a year of being here at the foundation, you could see everyone coming out of their bubbles, and I thought to myself, ‘Why should I be stuck in my own bubble? I’ll just pop my bubble and express who I am.’” After completing the hospitality programme, Mzoxolo interned at the Twelve Apostles Hotel, a partner and supporter of the Amy Foundation. As well as hospitality skills, he learned how a large business operates and was inspired to become an entrepreneur. He approached one of the YSD staff with a business idea: washing bins in his community. The Amy Foundation supported him whole-heartedly and arranged for him to attend workshops and seminars in town that covered personal finance and entrepreneurship, as well as providing one-on-one business coaching at the foundation office. He had over a dozen customers and was steadily earning an income that could help support his family.  The staff at the Amy Foundation were part of Mzoxolo’s learning experience, as he took the initiative to ask if anyone in the office needed help. He ended up working with the financial manager of the foundation, as well as several facilitators, aiding them in organizing the office and sorting out the logistics of the programmes.  Mzoxolo decided to pause his business and left the foundation to focus on university, enrolling in the College of Cape Town and studying transport and logistics. He is constantly studying and focused on graduating, and oftens stops by the Amy Foundation after class. “This is my happy place. When you are done with the programme and you are placed outside, they tell you that you must always be in communication with them. So I thought to myself, today I just have to come in. And here they assist you with your assignments, your school work, if you need any help like that.”  In the future, after he completes his degree, Mzoxolo plans to start his own transportation business. He wants to own and operate several trucks and create employment opportunities in his community, as well as earning enough money to support himself and his family. He is focused and determined to achieve his dreams, and continues to teach humility and responsibility to his peers. “Never give up in life. You never know what’s there for you…Do what it takes. Put in your CV, go in there…raise your hand, ask questions.”

Dalokuhle grew up in Khayelitsha and matriculated in 2015. For a while, he didn’t know what to do, sitting around the house and relying on his grandmother for financial support. He signed up for a hospitality course at an non-profit institute, but was reluctant and doubtful. “It was not something I was passionate about at first, but then as I got introduced to it I started to like it a lot.” He went on to enroll at a hotel school and began training for the hospitality industry, but was forced to drop out of the school when he was no longer able to afford the education.  “After moving from the hotel school I lost hope. I didn’t know where to go, how to start.” Dalokuhle was scrolling through his phone and saw an advertisement for the Amy Foundation’s YSD programmes. He immediately applied for hospitality and was accepted soon after. “I came here and they gave me hope. They made sure I could do this, and that I also had the confidence, so that even if there is something bad happening, I can still succeed.” He completed the hospitality programme in 2019, but still visits the foundation offices regularly. “Amy Foundation for me is like a family. So each and every now and then I need to go to them and just tell them where I’ve been, how I’ve been doing…They really care for me. And it’s not like they just care when I’m here. Even when I’m home, even in this COVID-19 period they called me to come and collect food parcels.”  After finishing the programme at the Amy Foundation, Dalokuhle was connected to an employment opportunity at the Grand Africa Cafe, where he worked as a runner for six months. After experiencing the reality of the hospitality industry, Dalokuhle fell in love with the excitement and the pressure, and was determined to learn more in order to advance his career. “My plan is to gain as much experience for the future. Just to explore the kitchen or the cheffing industry as a whole, because I’m really in love with it.” He applied for and is currently attending the Cooktastic Hub, a non-profit that furthers hospitality training and sets up employment opportunities, similar to the Amy Foundation. After about three and half months of training there, Dalokuhle is preparing for an exam to qualify him as a sous chef. He hopes to open his own take-away restaurant and further be able to support his grandmother and siblings.  Outside of cooking, Dalokuhle loves to perform. He is an active part of his local community theatre in Khayelitsha and can often be found acting in the most recent productions. “I do music, poetry, dance, and acting… I’ve been doing it for so many years.” His passion and talent for the arts carries through to his culinary skills, and he hopes his skills will benefit the community. His ultimate goal, after all the cooking and the acting,  is to become a teacher. “One of my dreams is to teach, because I believe that I’ve got leadership skills…I want to teach all the information that I have, all the information that I am getting now.” The staff and his fellow alumni at the Amy Foundation are proud of what Dalokuhle has becoming, and the foundation will continue to support him long after he finishes his hospitality training.      *Written by Indigo Knights in 2021, based on an interview with Dalokuhle.

Courtney grew up in Bonteheuwel, not too far from the school. Now 18, she has been part of the Amy Foundation’s netball after-school programme since 2012. She and her younger sister were introduced to the foundation by some of their friends, and they were two of the first students from other schools in the area to attend the foundation’s programmes.  In seventh and eighth grade, Courtney used to bully her peers and younger students. She started smoking around the same time. “I didn’t get the attention I needed, and I just really wanted to fit in with my friends.” She took her frustration out on others, not realizing the damage she was causing. “I was a very rough child, and the Amy Foundation really helped me. I used to bully children and stuff like that, so they actually helped me realize it’s wrong, what I’m doing.” In eleventh grade, Courtney stopped smoking and tried to change her image, doing whatever she could to be a positive influence on younger students. She wanted to leave behind who she was and focus on her future. “When I reached grade 11, when I passed matric [last year], I told myself, I can’t do this anymore, because I’m getting older and I need to be a good example to the younger ones.” The lessons she learned from facilitators carried through to her home life, influencing her relationships with her friends and family. “I started to respect my mother, and I started to be a good influence to my sister as well. So that changed all of us in the house.” Courtney started smoking again after she earned her matric, stuck in her house under pandemic restrictions and struggling to find work. But she hasn’t stopped trying to get better. She is working on being clean again and does her best to get out of her house. She wants to give back to the foundation that changed her life and dedicates much of her time to assisting the facilitators at the after-school programmes at Mimosa Primary School. “I’m willing to help this foundation because they helped me… They’re good mentors to us, man, and they helped us from the road, advising us what to do… Ms. Liezel and Aunty Gail, they always used to get me when they knew I used to smoke… I can’t lie to them because they know me so well. I know they care for me, because if they didn’t do that then they wouldn’t care for me. I really appreciate that.”  Now, she is looking to the future. Courtney plans to enroll in the Amy Foundation’s hospitality programme and aspires to have a career in hospitality that takes her all over the world. “I want to travel so much. I want to go to Amsterdam, of course. And I want to go to Las Vegas. I want to visit America. And Paris… I want to learn more countries and experience them… I would really want to travel the world and come back and share it with everyone else.”

Bombethu has been part of our life skills after-school programme in Gugulethu for five years, and works hard in school to achieve her dreams.  Born in the Eastern Cape, Bombethu and her family moved to Gugulethu when their house was burned down. They moved into her late aunt’s house, where she lives with her mother, brothers, sister, and grandmother. Her siblings, mother and grandmother all work to support the family. Bombethu is the youngest by almost ten years, and loves being spoiled because of it. “I love [being the youngest]. Because I get everything that I want.”  The Amy Foundation offers several after-school programmes at Siyazingisa Primary School in Gugulethu, from dance to marimba to netball, but Bombethu chose life skills. “I just want to learn. [The dance programme] teaches you how to dance, but I love reading.” The facilitators teach about peer pressure around drugs, sex, and alcohol, as well as literacy and general health education. In many communities, older men prey on easily influenced young girls, causing them to rely on the men and not have the opportunity to grow themselves or prioritize their future career. “Our teacher told us that when you get a boyfriend, you mustn’t just go sleep with him. You must first say, ‘I’m too small.’ In this place now they are dating big people. Our teacher said we mustn’t date big people, we must date our peers.”  Bombethu focuses on herself and her schooling. She has good marks in school and aspires to be a doctor. “I want to be a doctor…Because there are many people this year that are dying in hospitals…There’s another woman there that was giving birth, but there was no one helping her. I want to help.” The quality of the healthcare system in South Africa is dependent on your wealth, the rich receive world-class treatments from highly qualified doctors, while the vast majority of the population is unable to afford the same care. Instead, they are forced into crushing debt or rundown and crowded facilities, causing many people with treatable illnesses to lose their lives. Bombethu wants to be part of the solution; she wants to work in Gugulethu and help the community directly, making sure the underprivileged get equal access to quality healthcare.  But right now she is 13, enjoying being the youngest child and spending her free time spring cleaning and studying. In class, she loves to make jokes and is well-liked by her peers and teachers. “I am so talkative. I’m a dark-skinned girl. I’m tall, I have black hair, and my favourite subject is technology. I don’t like geography, it’s too hard. I’m kind to people.” Her future is bright, and the Amy Foundation will be there to support her as she grows up. 

Nomzekelo was raised in Khayelitsha and has been part of the Amy Foundation for over fifteen years. An active kid growing up, her primary school offered her the opportunity to join the Amy Foundation’s after-school programmes and she immediately signed up. She was mostly part of the dance programme, and was one of the children chosen by the foundation to partner with JazzArts, a dance project that has worked with the foundation for many years. “We would go to Ads Cape every Saturday to the JazzArts dance project, and we would learn contemporary dance…It was something new, something fun, that we loved.” She was part of the after-school programmes throughout primary school, then moved on to secondary school and focused on her matric. The impact of the foundation lasted long after she left the programmes, changing the way she saw the world and the standards she held for herself. Being at school long after the day finished kept her away from the negative influences of the streets and gave her little time to mess around with drugs, sex, and alcohol. “If I was never part of the Amy Foundation at that time, I would not know how I would be now, if I would still be alive…Or maybe I would have multiple kids at this age…but the fact that I was part of the [Amy Foundation] at that time meant I wasn’t exposed to negative things.”  After earning her matric, Nomzekelo signed up for a hospitality job agency, filling in for various positions in the hospitality industry all across the city. “I was not only a waiter, sometimes I would be exposed to the bar, be a barista, or sometimes do decor setups…They would teach us, or we would learn from other people, but I got to be exposed to almost every corner of hospitality.” The experience she gained from working at the agency inspired her to start her own catering business in Khayelitsha. “I started my company, I was not registered. I was just there if there were events…I didn’t know how to bake, I learnt through YouTube.” She would look for posters advertising events, then would call the event organizers to ask if she could cater for them, or would set up a table outside the event venue and sell homemade goods to attendees. All that she had was R200 as pocket change and an unstoppable drive to succeed.  Nomzekelo attended countless entrepreneurship workshops and seminars, working overtime to grow her business. She registered as a company and began to cater for larger events, eventually earning several referrals from past clients to new ones. “A referral is a good thing for any business because it means that you provided a service and they were happy with what you did.”  From that R200 pocket change, Nomzekelo has grown her business to be worth R80 000. She has her own food trailer and culinary equipment, and is currently working to expand to include decorations and further staffing. She has two full-time employees and two part-time ones, creating a rippling change in her community as she creates jobs and opportunities for others.  She saw the Amy Foundation’s YSD hospitality programme on Facebook and didn’t hesitate to sign up. “I know this foundation and I trust them… [I didn’t even] go to the website because I know them and I trust them from what I got when I was in primary school.” She is currently enrolled in the hospitality programme and hopes to gain the skills needed to further advance and expand her company.