Giving back to the community
ENTREPRENEURS and Silulo Ulutho Technologies owners Luvuyo and Lonwabo Rani have opened their hearts – and wallets – giving 18 bursaries worth R75000 to pupils from Nkwanca High School and KwaKomani Comprehensive High School.
The bursaries will be administered through the Komani Development Foundation (KDF), which was recently founded by the duo.
Speaking to pupils at KwaKomani on Tuesday morning, Lonwabo related his days as a student at KwaKomani.
“This school has blessed me. It can take someone without a dream to places that they never thought they would visit,” he said.
“It does not matter where you come from or what you are going through now, your future is in your hands and you can change it. Respect your teachers because they are the ones who help you to become something great in life. Take your education seriously so that you can be able to stand up for yourself one day.”
He said their father died in 1997 when they were pupils. He had been the only breadwinner.
“It was hard to come to school with torn shoes and pants. During break time we would go home to eat umphokoqo (crumbly mealie meal) with water as we could not afford to buy at the tuck shop, but that did not stop us from achieving.
“Today we travel the world and we are able to lift the Komani flag high. Our dream now is to make sure we educate people who will be an asset to our country and their communities.”
Former school teacher Rani, who started Silulo Technologies from the back of his car in Cape Town, said they had partnered with five other former pupils to start KDF. “Seven of us sat together, of whom six are former pupils of KwaKomani. We realised that it has been more than 20 years since we passed matric and some of us have been successful in our careers so we wanted to come up with a way to help with development in Komani.
“We identified three things: education, entrepreneurship and leadership. This is about sharing our journey and providing bursaries, and we also want to inspire other Queenstonians to come back and ‘adopt’ a child as a mentor.”
KwaKomani principal Victor Pakade said: “We are very excited with this legacy that these young gentlemen are starting by ploughing back into the community. We are going to celebrate 30 years of existence as a school, so this is the perfect period leading into that.”