LIFE, as you know, is unpredictable.
One minute you are walking into a fully furnished warm home, and the next, you are knocking on the doors of a homeless shelter.
This is how life for Tumi Thapo (28)* from the North West and Mpho Mahlangu (20) from Gauteng turned out.
However, they both have different stories of how they ended up at a shelter.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Tumi 's home was repossessed by a bank after her gogo, who she had been living with, couldn't continue paying for the house following her mkhulu's death.
Tumi sought temporary shelter with her sister.
When she realised her sister needed space, she researched places where she would stay while her gogo moved back to the North West to live with other relatives.
That’s when Tumi came across Impilo Shelter by NGO Mould Empower Serve (MES) in Joburg.
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On the other hand, Mpho turned to Impilo Shelter in March 2023 after he claimed he was "financially excluded" by his father when he failed matric.
He said his dad sent him to live with his mother in the Eastern Cape but because he knew his dreams were in Gauteng, he moved in with his aunt in Tshwane.
Like Tumi , the pressure of living with his aunt got too much when he felt she needed space, so he eventually moved out to his friend's place.
But that too didn’t last long as his friend was moving out, and they could not accommodate him.
His last stop was at the shelter.
Impilo Shelter opened its doors to Lerato and Mpho, offered them a place to stay and invested in their lives through various training programmes. Now their lives have changed for the better.
According to the shelter’s project manager Nhlanhla Zulu, the shelter offers courses like life skills, computer, security, and call centre.
"If someone needs a place to stay and help get a job, we enrol them in a course of their choice, give them a maximum of six months, and discharge them and bring in more people," she said.
Mpho and Tumi are committed to security training and are one step closer to a better life.
“Coming here opened my eyes a lot. There is often that stigma attached to homes that once you are here, you can never come back up, but that was not the case," Tumi said.
These were the same sentiments Mpho shared with Daily Sun.
“Change is around the corner, and it's essential to do what you have to do instead of talking about it,” he said.
Mpho Mahlangu is a pseudonym given to the 20-year-old young man as he felt uncomfortable using his real name.
(*Names have been changed to protect the people involved.)
