Young achiever on the verge of great things

Ntsako Mabunda

LIMPOPO – Ntsako Baloyi, an environmentalist born in Ngove village, Giyani, is one of the achievers featured in Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans of 2015 edition.

The edition features people under 35 years across various fields doing amazing things. What makes Baloyi stand out is the fact that he is a great dreamer, as well as a great strategist. Besides his strong faith in God, what drives him is a long list of childhood dreams that has since been neatly tabulated, with each goal ticked as it materialises. This has seen him achieve incredible feats ahead of his peers. At 32, Baloyi is the youngest president elect for the International Association for Impact Assessment Southern Africa (IAIAsa). He was elected in 2014 and will begin serving in August 2015 as the youngest president since its inception. An achievement that Baloyi is also proud of is his accreditation and qualification as a chartered environmentalist (CEnv) with the Society for Environment at age 30, making him one of fewer than 20 chartered environmentalists in South Africa. Baloyi currently works as an environmentalist in the mining industry, a field within mining that he believes is as crucial as production.

Baloyi demonstrated great intellect from the beginning and was awarded a scholarship to study at a Gauteng private high school. Achieving excellence in academics, sport and every other extracurricular activity he was involved in, the extroverted Baloyi sailed through high school and afterwards, with only R50 in his pocket, arrived at Cape Town station to study civil engineering at the University of Cape Town.

“After realising that though I wanted to study something where I could apply my scientific knowledge, I wanted something that would include the human element as well,” says Baloyi. Environmental science became his field of choice. Coming from very humble beginnings, Baloyi gives back by being CEO of Xisasi Foundation, a Limpopo-based NPO. Baloyi made his widowed mother proud by building her a dream home, and being a loving husband to his university sweetheart, Nosiphiwo, whom he has a son with.