Overcoming bullying was a catalyst to unleashing Nhlanhla Mafarafara’s full potential. The Ivy Park resident was named in the 2020 Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans. This is a list of young people to watch out for because of the impact that they are making in society. This is not something Mafarafara could have envisioned for himself when he was bullied to the point of leaving school.
“I felt like a misfit at school. It was only three months later that the adults caught on that I wasn’t going to school because I was being bullied and I was moved to a different school,” he said.The pharmacist by profession is also a motivational speaker, life coach and author with two books under his belt. He is currently working on two other books which will be published later in the year called ‘Values for men’ and ‘Finish with a bang’.
The charismatic Mafarafara shared that his life could have taken a different turn when he left school in Gr 8. “That experience was a defining moment for him because it forms part of his story and how life could have turned out differently for him.
In 2013, he was asked to lead young people at his church and wrote a book that talks about life challenges. “When I met the kids that experience the same pain as I did and they could not tell anyone, I wrote my first book. It was titled ‘Relentless Youth: reaching beyond the limit’ and it was written specifically for them. I felt like it broke the limit that inhibited my life and stopped me from thinking about the future and becoming anything,” he explained. He kept two copies at the church for the young people to borrow.
When I wrote my second book, ‘Step to the next level’, I was writing a letter to myself because I again felt like I was a misfit in a sense that I had an appearance of somebody who had it together but everything was falling apart. “A lot of us have a challenge that we say something in a public space and get tormented by our words at night. I was in that space,” he said. He wanted to lead by example and speak about things that he knows about from experience. “I don’t want to speak big; I want to speak at my level,” he added. He wrote the content of the book and applied it for two years before publishing it. The book has to phases, the first part is principles and motivation and the second part is practical. When he realised that it helped him, he knew somebody could benefit from it and he was ready to publish.He also hosts seminars called ‘The next level seminars’ and he has hosted four thus far.
