ZINHLE NDAWONDE
ROLE: South African women’s rugby player
In 2016, when Zinhle Ndawonde was nominated as Player of the Year for her Durban-based provincial women’s rugby team, she had a tough conversation with herself. She knew she had more potential and felt that she lacked direction. Not content with her already-impressive list of accolades, she added playing in green and gold to her aspirations. And she decided there and then to start acting like a national player, even though she wasn’t one – yet.
Fast forward to 2021 and she’s an international sevens and fifteens rugby player for South Africa. Impossible? This never occurred to her.
Zinhle started playing rugby in her first year of high school. She knew that hockey and netball, which the other girls were playing, weren’t for her. But she did know instinctively that rugby was her game, even when she was wearing sweaty training gear and maintaining her place on the boys’ team, while the other girls were “looking all cute in short skirts on the sidelines”.
“I grew up in Inanda township in KwaZulu-Natal, and there was so much stuff going on,” she says. “Teenage pregnancies, gangs, drugs and alcohol. I didn’t want to be involved in any of that, I wanted something else for myself. But I knew that if I didn’t distract and distance myself, I might as well just accept that as my future. I used my passion, my rugby, to find my way out.”
At the peak of her rugby career, Zinhle is still using sport as a way out, but now she’s also focusing on others. Her personal goal is to inspire young girls and women, and to show them that sport can change their lives if they’re determined enough.
She’s committed to growing sporting opportunities for women, and paving the way for young female athletes to have opportunities that are equal to those of men. “I’m living proof that it doesn’t matter where you come from, as long as you’re prepared to put in the hard work.”
When she’s not on the rugby field, she’s a professional firefighter at King Shaka International Airport. This work throws extreme mental and physical challenges her way, and she plays her sport off against her job to bring her absolute best to both worlds.
Zinhle says that being a professional sportswoman and also being on top of her game in a traditionally male-dominated profession, have empowered her to be unapologetic about her capabilities; to do more than is expected; and to see beyond what most people see as impossible.
Who knew that a young girl from a township, whose parents had very traditional expectations of her, would end up travelling all over the world representing her country through her sport? Who knew that this responsible young girl, the oldest child of a teacher and a domestic worker, would end up being able to support her family financially? Who knew that this young girl could make her own opportunities, instead of waiting for things to fall into her lap? Zinhle knew. And she’s not done yet.