Tumi, Warriors’ talented warrior

Tumi says that while she was always perceived as the ‘happygo-lucky’ girl, a coaching session with Rudi, founder of Warriors, made her realise that she used her outgoing nature as a coping mechanism.

“Truth is I am an introvert and used the bubbly persona as a mask,” Tumi told Herald.

Today she is a 30-year-old executive at a media monitoring company and looks back at Rudi’s intervention in her life with wonderment.

“My story is what the gap year at Warriors Academy is all about,” she said.

She was in matric in Mokopane and was selected to study medicine when she first visited Warriors.

“I had an interview with Rudi and he offered me a yearlong scholarship for the gap-year programme. The first part of the programme is an emotional intelligence assessment and it was here where the life-changing experience for her started. To really know yourself at the age of eighteen shaped the rest of my life,” she said.

After completing the gap year, she stayed for another four years as a facilitator of the adventure and instructor training that the academy conducts.

“This decision was difficult for my family. Due to my upbringing, it was expected of me to follow a traditional professional career path,” she said.

“But Warriors changed all of that.”

She says that early on in her first year of working at Warriors, she told Rudi she now knows what she wants to study.

“I wanted to do marketing and again he stepped in and paid for my studies.”

Her four years with Warriors were marked by travelling and being exposed to a world beyond the beaten path.

Among the many opportunities were to be selected to do a sailing course.

“Today I am really grateful for the experiences, it has moulded me as a person.”

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In 2014 she started her corporate career and with the guidance of Rudi, was able to choose the path that led to more opportunities than ever before.

Her first job was in branding after she coincidently met the head of an international cosmetics company in Cape Town.

“She asked for my CV and for three years I learned the ropes of PR, branding and marketing.”

When it was time to move on, she was offered two jobs in the same week.

“Again I asked Rudi which one I should take and when I said that I will probably find the IT involved in media monitoring more challenging, he said that is the job you should take.”

Tumi is still very involved at Warriors.

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She recently attended the graduation ceremony of the latest group of students on Warrior’s campus in Magoebaskloof where she gave an inspirational talk to the graduates.

“I try to return whenever I can,” she said.

But it is Warriors’ most recent endeavour, a foundation that was started by the Viljoen family with the aim to provide deserving, underprivileged students with opportunities that have her excited and where she is playing a leading role.

“If we can create opportunities for young people and guide them to be productive citizens through the opportunities that the foundation offer, we can build a thriving society,” she said.

Visit Warriors Foundation, www.warriorsfoundation.org.za or email rudi@warriors.co.za or phone 082 802 0880