Mxolisi Hamilton Khoza is a remarkable young man who has overcome some of life’s great obstacles with pure determination.
Mxolisi and his four siblings grew up with his grandmother in Dun Donald, while his mother, Jane, was employed in Ermelo as a domestic worker.
It is general practice in South Africa for parents to seek employment in bigger towns or cities in order to provide for their families.
But what happened in 2006, while he was in Grade 12, really changed Mxolisi’s future.
During the first semester of that year, their mathematics teacher left, but realising that he had to pass Grade 12, Mxolisi made a plan.
With the help of a friend, Themba Dlamini, who had finished school the year before, he mastered maths on his own and also lent a helping hand to his fellow learners.
Mxolisi matriculated and even without a teacher in his final year, he obtained a distinction in mathematics.
His outlook on life changed from that day on: he realised that with determination he could accomplish anything.
When they learned of his achievement, his mother’s employer offered to help him further his education and he enrolled in an electrical engineering course at the Gert Sibande College in Ermelo.
Mxolisi repaid his benefactors by passing his subjects with distinctions and finished among the best students in Mpumalanga.
After his year at the college, he moved to Balfour where he started working for Eskom.
He kept in regular contact with his mother’s employers and kept on thanking them for affording him the opportunity to study and also for believing in him.
One day while in conversation with them, they told Mxolisi that the only way they wanted to be repaid was for him to promise to look after his mother.
This was a request he took to heart and, after making the necessary arrangements, he had a house built for his mother.
Mxolisi’s hunger for knowledge kept gnawing at him, so he resigned and applied for a bursary through BHP Billiton.
In January 2011, he enrolled for an electrical engineering course at the University of Johannesburg.
He received his bursary only in the second semester, but, determined to begin his studies, he paid his own way through the first.
Two weeks ago, Mxolisi’s hard work and determination paid off when he graduated with a BTech (cum laude): field of study Engineering: Electrical.
Long gone are the days when he managed a distinction in maths without a teacher. Today Mxolisi can proudly display his degree which he passed with distinction.
Mxolisi says he is grateful to all the people who provided him with the right tools to sculpt his future. His message to the youth is: “Remain determined; with determination you can achieve anything.”
When asked whether it was always his ambition to be an engineer, he just smiled and said he was a typical teenager and his only ambition was to pass Grade 12,
His philosophy of “tomorrow will provide for itself” changed dramatically when he realised what could be done through pure determination.
Today a bright future awaits him.
