She walked into the hospital with a gum infection and walked out with a goal.
And a few years later, she made it a reality.
Sibongile Mongadi had a gum infection and when she was referred to her local hospital from the clinic, she ended up going home without getting it attended to as she was too focused on helping a disabled man who had been on a waiting list for a prosthetic leg for five years.
From that interaction at the hospital in 2018, Sibongile (now 32) would end switching careers and starting her own business to meet the needs of her community.
“My clinic gave me medication for my gum infection then they referred me to the hospital for x-rays. But while I was there, there was commotion between nurses and a disabled man. I tried to defuse the situation by calming the man down.
“I remember thinking he was exaggerating when he said he had been going back and forth and had been trying to get the prosthetic leg for five years. I mean, five years is a long time, so I thought uya’ng shaya shaya (he’s playing me) but when I enquired further, I found out from the head of department that he had indeed been on the waiting list for five years. I forgot about my gum infection, and I left without even getting my x-ray because I was so invested in this."
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Sibongile says this broke her heart because hospitals are a place that should be able to give people help, so if a person is going to spend five years trying to get that help, how are they expected to live?
With a background in manufacturing engineering, she began to speak to a lot more people in her Soweto community who had disabilities to find out about their struggles.
“I did not have a plan at the time, I just wanted to help but I did not know how. I was working as a consultant for a financial institution. I then visited a lot of public hospitals to find out what their position was, some were the same and some were worse because they do not manufacture their own prosthetics.”
Growing up, Sibongile wanted to pursue an education and career in medicine but being number six of eight children meant she could not study medicine because of finances.
She then got R100 000 funding from the Black Management Forum, which allowed her to start her business, Uku'hamba Prosthetics and Orthotics.
“We now have an entire operation running in Dobsonville and we manufacture from there. We have a mechanical engineer, a biomedical engineer and myself as the manufacturing engineer. Between the three of us, we tailor make the prosthetics to the customer’s needs.
“We are also able to bedazzle them for customers if they request that. We do not want them to feel any shame in needing to wear prosthetics. We also understand sometimes people conquer their disabilities psychologically and that allows them to live their best life and to achieve what it is that they are destined to do.”
The business was officially registered in January 2020, then Covid-19 happened.
“We then struggled there but to try keep the momentum, we started manufacturing PPE. Then in 2021 we were affected by looting and now its loadshedding but we are not giving up. We are determined to provide this service so that our customers can have their dignity restored.
“Yes we charge, our prosthetics are not free, but we are 80% cheaper than what is currently available on the market. The nice thing about our prosthetics as well is that we make them adjustable for kids so that when they outgrow them they do not have to discard them and get new ones. They can simply adjust them. Also, we recycle and we take trade-ins.”
Sibongile’s company has recently become the recipient of R1.3 million from The SAB Foundation. The foundation, in partnership with the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), has awarded R18 million in grant funding and business development support to 29 deserving entrepreneurs at its 12th annual Social Innovation and 7th annual Disability Empowerment Awards.
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Sibongile and Liz Moynihan, founder of Kotonki, were the overall winners of the Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards.
Three projects previously supported by TIA are among the finalists.
"Through this partnership we are committed to expanding innovation-related activities in underserved regions as well as promote social entrepreneurship development in South Africa,” says Ms Tshembani Khupane, acting head of strategic partnerships and business development for TIA.
SAB Foundation executive director Bridgit Evans says the awards took inspiration from the South African Fire Lily, a tough plant that defies the elements by producing its beautiful salmon to scarlet blooms just nine days after the destructive effects of a fire.
“Today we celebrate these amazing social innovators for their endurance, and we want to see them flourish into bigger and better enterprises that will stimulate local socio-economic activities beyond their current areas of operation."
