Hard-pressed, young entrepreneur starts charcoal making business
‘It shows that it is true when people say all the plans may be ours, but it is God who decides when everything happens’
Sometimes a major setback in life can turn out to be a blessing in disguise later on, as 30-yearold Lusikisiki-born Babini Ndleleni has come to realise.
In 2020, the young entrepreneur found himself unemployed and with no source of income after his work contract as a sales representative at an electrical appliances store in Matatiele was not renewed after the country emerged from the hard lockdown.
A devastated Ndleleni was forced to leave Matatiele and return home to Chamangweni village in rural Lusikisiki.
It was a major setback for Ndleleni, who had planned to work for the company for a few more years to save enough money to start his own charcoal manufacturing business.
Today, he is the founder of Babi J and Sons Charcoal Manufacturers, which makes wooden loop charcoal and sells it to businesses in Lusikisiki and Flagstaff.
“I had given myself four years [to continue working for the electrical company].
“I would then resign and focus on starting my own business but life dealt me a cruel blow,” he said.
“It shows that it is true when people say all the plans may be ours, but it is God who decides when everything happens.”
He now has eight full-time employees working for him.
Like many other young people wanting to forge a better life for themselves and their families, Ndleleni grew up dreaming of becoming an accountant.
After matriculating at Mount Hargreaves High in Matatiele in 2009, he enrolled for an 18month diploma in financial management at Maluti TVET College.
After completing his course, he had to find a job to help take care of his daughter who was born when he was still in matric.
At the time, while unable to find a job, he met a Namibian man who was running a learnership project in primitive technology and charcoal engineering in Mvenyane village, not far from Matatiele, working closely with the Alfred Nzo district municipality.
Though he had no idea what charcoal engineering was, his curiosity was piqued.
“I met him and I wanted to know how charcoal was made.
“He said it was difficult to become a charcoal maker and that I would have to study it at university in his country.
“I knew where I come from there is a lot of wood and I went onto a every website trying to learn about the art of making charcoal,” said Ndleleni.
In 2012, with the help of funding from the district municipality, he was able to enrol at the Namibia University of Science and Technology to study a four-year-degree in primitive technology and charcoal engineering.
The municipality, however, stopped funding his studies during his second year.
His parents had to send him money for food every month.
In 2017, he returned home and started looking for a job to fund his dream of setting up his own charcoal-making business.
And then the lockdown happened in 2020, and life sent him a curveball.
But instead of sulking, Ndleleni went about fulfilling his dream.
First, he bought bow saws and roped in a young man from the village who he taught all he knew about charcoal making.
The pair spend most of their time cutting down acacia trees in a natural forest near his home, turning the wood into charcoal, which they sell for a profit.
Ndleleni said so far, they had been able to sell their product to two wholesalers, one in Lusikisiki and another in Flagstaff.
They also sell charcoal in villages and to hawkers who run braai stalls in Lusikisiki.
His dream is to become the biggest charcoal supplier in the Eastern Cape, creating jobs and boosting the area’s economy.
Masibulele Ntsepo, 29, works as an administrator for Ndleleni’s company.
He met Ndleleni through a mutual friend.
He also had no knowledge on how to make charcoal.
“Everything I know now, he [Ndleleni] taught me,” a grateful Ntsepo said.