Thulani Madondo
UPSKILLING & EMPOWERING THE YOUTH OF KLIPTOWN
Thulani Madondo at the KYP complex in Kliptown, Gauteng - © Thom Pierce, 2024
Sitting in Thulani Madondo’s bright office with the Kliptown Youth Program’s (KYP) 2025 strategic goals on the wall, it is easy to forget that the surrounds are one of the most impoverished and neglected areas in Gauteng.
Madondo, 42, knows the circumstances of the 1402 children who benefit from the KYP’s programs all too well, as he was born only a few metres from the building’s front steps that he and a group of friends founded 17 years ago. He grew up in a single room shack with his mother and seven siblings.
The modern building with a computer lab, numerous classrooms, a gender neutral bathroom, an indoor football pitch, and a large kitchen stands in stark contrast to the corrugated iron shacks and rubbish-strewn gravel paths surrounding it.
“Our impact is really amazing,” he says with a beaming smile. “I lived here in this squatter camp, no electricity, no running water, everything communal. Today almost 99% of our team no longer live here in Kliptown. As we develop the organisation and empower the kids, we were also very fortunate to empower ourselves.
“We have five of our alumni working full-time for the organisation now, with two of them in managerial positions. That is something to be extremely proud of,” Madondo says. “I always tell the kids: ‘the only thing you owe us is your success’.”
Occupying a significant place in South Africa’s history, Kliptown became the first place where the historic Freedom Charter, that paved the way for South Africa’s democratic goals and ideals, was adopted in 1955. Despite the lofty aspirations of the Freedom Charter, residents of Kliptown were left behind and neglected for decades by the Apartheid regime and 30 years of democratic rule.
The community lacks even the most basic of human needs such as schools, healthcare facilities, running water, electricity, and proper sanitation. Due to extreme poverty and little to no service delivery, the children of Kliptown are often the most vulnerable, with access to school uniforms, shoes, food and reading material inaccessible to many.
Madondo and his friends saw these needs and came together almost two decades ago to do something about the grinding poverty and desperation that people in their community were faced with. Since then, KYP has developed and grown, catering to more children every year and providing more services to the entire community.
These days children have access to tutoring, school fees and uniform support, a food program, online learning through computer labs with internet, a vocational program, performing arts, culture, and sport programs, a library, and psychosocial support, among other things.
“All the work we do here, it is not for fame. It is to help people, especially children, to rise out of poverty. No one chose to be born in poverty, but how we respond to that and the challenges that come with poverty is the most important. There are so many opportunities for people, but it’s how they respond to them. That is what we are trying to do, to help people with the mindset to succeed in life,” Madondo says.
But it is not just children who benefit from KYP and its many programs. Anyone from the community can come and use the computer labs to prepare for and apply for jobs, while there are dedicated staff on site to help people apply for social grants.
“The best thing we can do as an organisation is to give full ownership of the centre to the community at large,” Madondo says, adding that residents of Kliptown were given job opportunities through a lottery system during the construction on the new premises. On a weekly basis, unemployed residents also get opportunities to earn some money by cleaning and helping maintain the site.
Madondo says despite never going to university himself and giving up on his dream to become an accountant, he has championed more than R10-million as alumni of the program enrolled for tertiary education during the last 17 years. “Today some of our alumni are living lives way, way better than myself and I am okay with that,” he says.
“That was always the dream. The more successful the children become, the better I become. I sleep very peacefully knowing very well how many people’s lives I’ve touched. And not myself, it’s a collective effort of course. I am constantly humbled, motivated, and inspired by our alumni.”
