Seeing hungry children trudging long distances to school in ragged uniforms and broken shoes, crossing rivers and walking through forests, reminded Bulelani Mancotywa of the poverty in which he had grown up. The Eastern Cape entrepreneur remembers going to bed hungry, and is now on a quest to assist other young people from impoverished homes. Now that his circumstances have improved, he goes out of his way on multifaceted projects including sports development, poverty alleviation, education development and skills development.
“This is an initiative to plough back to the community that raised me. “This is my little contribution to the young beautiful souls out there who have big dreams but whose poverty and lack of opportunity are stumbling blocks. “This is an initiative to fight the bondage of poverty, unearth sports talent, and fight the scourges of substance and alcohol abuse and teenage pregnancy.
” Mangcotywa, who was born and raised in the village of Nomcamba outside Ngqeleni, is a self-taught photographer and owns Khiwa Media. In 2015, Mangcotywa graduated with a teaching diploma from Walter Sisulu University He founded Khiwa Media the following year, offering videography and photography services. “I have trained about 20 youths from scratch and provided them with jobs,” he said.
“I assisted eight of them to establish their own photographic companies, and am happy to see them succeed.” Mangcotywa founded the Khiwa Media Annual Sport Tournament, the flagship of sports development in the OR Tambo district. He has invested more than R2m into rural sports development, poverty alleviation and education initiatives since the tournament started five years ago.
“This tournament is all about sports development and unearthing talent, fighting crime, economic development, creating job opportunities and assisting needy families,” Mangcotywa said. Traditional leader Nkosi Sizwe Bathande Ndamase and Nyandeni local municipality special programmes portfolio head Zamisile Nondlevu, who nominated Mangcotywa as a Local Hero, said his initiative aimed to develop sports in schools and rural areas and develop rural communities. “The tournament boosts economic development as we have seen many traders selling their stuff,” Nondlevu said.
“Also, it is contributing immensely to the war against crime. Youth now are using their energies on sport.” Mangcotywa assists hundreds of schoolchildren, buying them school uniforms, shoes, clothes, stationery, groceries and even paying school fees and donating sports kits and soccer boots.
“For the past five years, I have also been donating sanitary towels as well as food parcels to hundreds of destitute families, to ensure children do not only rely on school nutrition.” In 2024, he donated 600 sanitary towels and 300 pairs of school shoes to 11 schools including Dumezweni Senior Secondary School in Ngqeleni where he wrote matric in 2010. .
” Mangcotywa holds back tears when speaking of his personal experience of poverty. His mother, Yoliswa Gwadiso, a single parent, died in 2004 and his grandmother, Mawane Mbawula, in 2006. “My mother and grandmother kept me going.
” He spent most of his childhood with his maternal grandmother as his mother, a seasonal worker at the Magwa Tea Estate in Lusikisiki, was usually away. “Life was often unbearable, but those two heroines were my pillars,” he said. “We were 10 family members sleeping in one dilapidated rondavel, going to bed hungry and surviving on wild berries, guavas and bananas.
“I first wore a new pair of shoes in grade 6. “Life was harsh, but the encouraging words of my grandmother and my mother not to quit school or be involved in crime kept me going.” DispatchLIVE.
