By Malebo Pheme
As South Africa honoured Nelson Mandela’s legacy, Thembelihle Ngcai woke to an announcement that would honour her and remind the country of the quiet battles still being fought in the margins.
When Thembelihle Ngcai was six years old, doctors told her mother she wouldn’t live beyond fourteen. Today, at 31, she has outlived that prognosis by more than a decade, and she’s just getting started.
Ngcai, a Rhodes University alumna and disability rights advocate, was recently named one of News24’s Top 30 Young Mandelas of the Future, a recognition awarded to young South Africans whose work carries the spirit of Madiba’s legacy.
Spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative condition, Ngcai has spent much of her life navigating spaces not designed for people like her. But instead of retreating, she turned her experience into fuel, becoming a national voice for disability inclusive development, youth empowerment, and justice.
Today, she chairs Disabled Youth South Africa in the Eastern Cape, has addressed Parliament on inclusive policy, and regularly publishes essays that challenge how the world sees disability, sexuality, gender, and identity.
One of her most memorable moments came in Parliament, when she rolled up to a podium that was too high for her to reach. Some members of parliament offered her a microphone, but she refused. Eventually, a roving microphone was brought to her, which she noted is rarely done. The room adjusted to her, not the speaker. She told them, “We do not want power. Because we already have it.” They stood to applaud.
Ngcai speaks candidly about the emotional and spiritual cost of representation. “Being in those rooms feels like a privilege,” she says, “but it also comes with guilt knowing how many others like me are still shut out.
But even in her quietest moments, she is still doing the work. “Time with yourself is also activism,” she reflects. “Loving yourself when you live with a body that’s constantly declining is a protest. That’s survival.”
Now working in policy development, public speaking, and mentoring disabled youth, Ngcai says being honoured as a Young Mandela is meaningful but also bittersweet. “I just want to make sure I’m not the last person with a body like mine in these spaces. I don’t want to be the only story people remember.”
A reminder for all of us
Ngcai is not a symbol. She is a person. A person who lives in a country that still forgets its poor, its disabled, its young, and its voiceless — but who shows us that the future is not something to wait for. It is something we build.
