PINKY NCUBE STORY: THE POWER OF MENTORING

Laws required the two-bedroom shack where Pinky Ncube grew up in Cape Town’s Mandela Park township to be a temporary structure. Blacks weren’t allowed to build brick homes there, and fires in the crowded, warren-like neighborhood were common.

But Pinky, who was among the first girls GSGC supported, was fortunate, she said recently from the sturdy home she shares with her husband and young son about 70 miles north of London, England.

Lucky, she said, because Mandela Park was home to Jikeleza, a dance and drumming troupe for youths that was supported financially by several international nonprofits, including the fledgling Global Sojourns Giving Circle. The creativity and joy of ballet and contemporary African dance came with self-discipline, confidence-building, physical challenges and emotional support — Jikeleza’s values that are still central to GSGC’s work. Pinky devoured it all — dance, workshops, camps, and the leadership club.

“Had my time been free, who knows? I might have been part of the statistics, and my potential might never have been realized,” she said.

Dance was a powerful draw, but after graduation, Pinky pursued accounting at the suggestion of her ever-encouraging, but practical parents. As she aged out of Jikeleza, the group stood by her. Staff helped her get a college scholarship, find a place to live and acquire essentials such as sheets and a laptop. She felt supported.

Now, 13 years later, Pinky and her husband are supporting others. Nurtured and mentored by those who saw a spark in her, Pinky exemplifies GSGC’s tenets of learning, dignity, possibility and giving back. She is a shining example of GSGC’s girl empowerment focus. She knows the value of GSGC’s mantra: I see you. I hear you. I believe in you. 

“I see a lot of us who were helped joining together now and trying to do things for our own community,” she said. “I see us trying to nurture each other, share information with each other, share opportunities. We always say that when one makes it, it’s like the whole community has made it.”

Leaving Mandela Park

Pinky was on a school trip when she got the call: the Mandela Park shack had burned to the ground.

“I came home, and it was ashes, everything was gone,” she said recalling the fire. “We were left homeless. My parents were devastated.”

Buying the shack years before had been hard. Employment and money were scarce. But Jikeleza — a Xhosa word meaning turn around — stepped up. Club officials helped her parents secure a loan of 5000 Rand, or $286 today, to buy it. 

Despite everything, the family managed to acquire another Mandela Park shack. Fearful of another blaze, they cautiously replaced belongings when they could afford to.

Studying in the township was difficult. Quarters were cramped, and the neighbors’ noises were distracting. Pinky and her older sister worked out a strategy: after school and chores, they slept until the neighborhood was quiet. Whether that was 11 pm or 1 am, they got up and opened their school books.

“You make time for the things you want to happen,” Pinky said. “It is possible, but I feel like for girls, there’s that extra motivational push that’s needed. Sometimes it’s just someone believing in you because, sometimes, our parents were defeated by the system.”

Many parents cautioned their daughters against pursuing an education and career. Balancing them while fulfilling girls’ traditional social roles would be impossible, the thinking was. But Pinky’s parents wanted something better for their daughters.

Pinky’s father supported her education and time with Jikeleza

Our parents have been so supportive; they’ve given their all,” Pinky said. “My parents have always worked hard to say: your education, your life, we’ll do what we can to make your dreams come true. They put their dreams on hold. My father was painting a picture of what a man can be.”

Pinky’s sister became a lawyer. Eventually, she secured a loan to buy the family a solid, three-bedroom house in Summer Greens, a more prosperous Cape Town neighborhood. About then, Pinky and four other Jikeleza dancers were featured in a short film commissioned by a Dutch woman. It was called “Leaving Mandela.”

Pursuing Your Dreams, Staying Close

Before finishing at the University of Cape Town, Pinky had found work to help her sister with the cost of the new house. The family began attending a church in the neighborhood, and there, Pinky met Geekay Ncube. They married in 2017.

“My husband was very supportive of my studies. He wasn’t a typical African man who expected you to cook. He let me study while he took on the cooking,” she explained. “He says he’s helping me prepare for widowhood, that if anything happens to him, I could still be independent and strong and continue living the life I can, pursuing my dreams.”

After graduation, Pinky quickly found work. Her sister also had married, and Pinky wanted to pick up where she had left off, staying supportive of her parents. When recruiters offered her an accounting position in the United Kingdom, she declined.

But South Africa was becoming less hospitable to foreigners such as her husband. Geekay was born and reared in Zimbabwe and getting the necessary permits for him to pursue his computer programming career and buy a home in Cape Town was becoming more difficult. “And safety, raising a child there, we weren’t too sure about how things were progressing,” Pinky said. “We wanted to experience being in a different country and see if we liked it.”

When another job opportunity arose in the UK, Pinky took it. Two weeks before she was to leave, she learned she was pregnant. She went ahead, but the pandemic and a visa delay prevented Geekay from joining her. She was alone during her pregnancy until a cousin introduced her to friends in the African diaspora.

“Community is a beautiful thing,” she said. “A person is a person by people, so it’s a big thing for us to support each other.”

Geekay arrived just before the baby was born, and they have made a life in England. They plan to stay for now, giving their young boy more varied opportunities. But they have not left Africa behind.

Platform for Potential

Pinky worries that the mentoring opportunities she benefited from are dwindling in Africa. She and her husband are trying to stem that tide.

“We work with children a lot,” she said. “We have a girls club in Cape Town. When we’re there, we stay close to this community.”

Their two-income stream has enabled them to build a concrete house and guesthouse on farmland in Zimbabwe. Geekay’s mother lives there, taking in children who need help while their parents are working abroad. Pinky and Geekay live there when they visit Zimbabwe. Their income has enabled them to build a house north of Cape Town, and they are saving to buy a house in England.

Support is a long, looping, two-way street, she notes. “My dad is content with the job he has done (raising me). He’s satisfied that I can help in whatever way if anything happens.”

Pinky still keeps in touch with former Jikeleza dancers, amazed at what each has accomplished. “Unimaginable things we never thought we could achieve,” she said.

As a teen, Pinky said, she didn’t realize she had leadership qualities or potential. But others did, and she is grateful. Today’s young people need the same support, she said.

“Thank you for seeing in me what I didn’t see in myself. To some extent, it’s about the people who see that in you and give you a platform to grow, to gain confidence,” she said. “A big part of what I’ve become is because of the people who saw potential in me and nurtured it.

“When you grow up in a township and all you know is township life and your mind is just closed off, it feels like we’re stuck in this cycle,” she said.

“But because I, having grown up in the same circumstances, have been able to accomplish much, children look up to me.,” Pinky said. “I believe that when they hear my story, they get to dream bigger.”