The two popular, former beggars along Hendrik Potgieter Road, Ivan Mogadingane and Jeffery Makgotlho, are still mesmerised by the fact that their lives are expected to change for the better from November onward.
The duo, who spent almost a decade begging on the streets, were offered life-changing opportunities by High Voltage Power Systems, a business unit of E.O.H to work for them as general workers on their project in Honeydew.
Although they found it hard to believe when the company’s Community Liaison Officer (CLO), Lerato Mkubukeli, chose them from among the many struggling people in the area to work for the company, it was even harder to comprehend when they finally met their employer and project manager, Denis Botha, who assessed their abilities during a brief interview and gave them a rundown of the project.
A challenge the duo both had in common was being without a matric; however, the company promised to assist them to attain the qualification. A unique challenge for Jeffery was his disability as he was born with a deformed leg. He uses a prosthetic leg which was donated to him so that he could walk properly. But Jeffery’s disability didn’t seem to be a stumbling block for the company as Botha offered him a physically less demanding administrative job (counting company resources) while Ivan, who appeared to be in a better physical condition, was provided a hard labour-related job to match his ambition of becoming a mechanic.
This duo who are now waiting to start their jobs, used the Northsider platform to thank the many giving hands that reached out to them with food and money in their time of need as beggars.
