Loyiso Manga-Mlengana considers Grahamstown home because that’s where he spent his school holidays. Stifled by corporate life the BAdmin graduate headed south, and it was to Sani Street that he came, from Sandton.
Loyiso Manga-Mlengana considers Grahamstown home because that’s where he spent his school holidays. Stifled by corporate life the BAdmin graduate headed south, and it was to Sani Street that he came, from Sandton.
Actually, if you head west along Sani Street it becomes Ncame Street. That’s where Nombulelo High School is, and that’s where Grocott’s Mail found Manga-Mlengana this week.
In the girls’ toilets, to be exact. Manga-Mlengana spent two years working in the head office of a national insurance and investment company before deciding that if he was going to take the risk of setting up his own business, now was the time.
Fingo VIllage Holdings is the name of his enterprise, which specialises in high-pressure cleaning of roofs, gutters, pavings and walls. His work extends beyond Grahamstown, as far as Port Alfred and Peddie, he tells Grocott’s Mail.
A graduate of Helderberg College in Somerset West, he had the benefit of good schools – Grey High in Port Elizabeth, then Sterling High in East London. He used to come to Grahamstown every school holiday, where his dad’s family lived.
“This was where the fun was at,” he said. “I’d get together with other kids in the neighbourhood for endless games of soccer or rugby.”
So it was a shock for him returning from corporate comfort to find little was happening for sport in the township, and that both young people and the elderly remained mostly marginalised and neglected.
Environment isn’t everything, but your surroundings can definitely influence the way you feel about life and your prospects in it. “It seemed to me that even basic facilities like toilets could become a haven rather than a hell,” Manga-Mlengana says, from the recently repainted girls’ toilets at Nombulelo.
He along with employee Sonwabo Gedze pressure-cleaned the toilet walls and floor. “They were quite a mess.”
Then with paint supplied by Build It, he and store manager Philip Swanepoel repainted the walls. Because it was part of their Mandela Month contribution, they painted inspiring quotes from Madiba on the walls.
In a separate project, contractors are now replacing the toilets and basins.
Why couldn’t Manga-Mlengana have left the dirty work to filter through the education department tenders for someone else to do?
“I feel there are many demotivated young people who lack role models,” Manga-Mlengana said.
“I feel we’ve let them down in that way. “It’s time to change that.” One toilet block at a time.
