Siphamandla Mngomezulu, from Mosvold District in Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal, is graduating with a Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology today. You might not care, until you know what obstacles this 25-year old University of Johannesburg graduate has overcome in order to hold this degree.
"Mmm, mmm," says Siphamandla as he considers the last couple of years. "Today is quite a huge achievement and a humbling experience for me, looking at where I came from - having started in a rural school."
His achievement is mountainous. "When I started my first year at UJ, I had never seen a psychologist in my life. I didn't know much about the career, but I knew it was something that I had to do, that it was the calling that I had," he says.
In 2003 Siphamandla opted to do his community service internship in Bloemfontein because he says he wanted to learn more about other cultures – in this case, Afrikaans and Sesotho. Not only did he learn about these cultures, but he practised in both languages and is now a fluent speaker of six South African languages, including Afrikaans.
Siphamandla is currently working for the Department of Health in the rural Umkhanyakude District at the Hlabisa Hospital where he is a community health service clinical psychologist.
He is one of 72 students that have graduated in health sciences and medical degrees and returned to work in their rural communities through the support of the Umthombo Youth Development Foundation.
"I'm here where I am today because of Umthombo," says Siphamandla. "When I finished high school, my single mother, who is home-based care community worker, couldn't even afford the R1000 for the university registration. So this was the best way I had to realise my dream."
Umthombo is a non-profit organisation based and birthed in Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal. The NPO identifies youth who have potential careers in professions ranging from physiotherapy, pharmacy, radiology and medicine, and provides them with the funding and mentorship to do so.
The organisation is currently supporting 110 students and was founded in 1999, with just four students, by Drs Andrew and Glenys Ross. These two KZN doctors had enough entrepreneurial guts to try and change the status of rural hospitals, when many doctors have chosen to move onto the cities or abroad.
"It's a commitment to raising a generation of educated health care workers," says Umthombo's Director Gavin MacGregor, who is visibly energised by the transformation in the lives of the youngsters he mentors.
He believes the programme is critical to reversing staff shortages at rural hospitals where there are many vacancies for qualified medical staff – in some cases up to 50 percent. "In the past the staff shortages have been addressed by recruiting foreign doctors. The problem is that they stay for a short time and they don't understand the language or the culture. In a relatively short time they leave. Another issue is that such programmes only involve doctors."
"At Umthombo, we are training a broad range of medical professionals and they're all local. For every year we support them, they have to go back for same amount of time in the rural community. It's easy because they come from these communities, they know these communities and they have contacts there," says MacGregor.
Potential students are identified through outreaches to Kwa-Zulu Natal rural schools in the areas of Mosvold, Mseleni, Manguzi, Bethesda, Hlabisa, Benedicton, Inkonjeni and Nkandla.
"We help the youth realise that there are opportunities in the health sector. We tell them they have to take Maths and Science and that they have to pass well to enter university. We then encourage them to apply to as many universities as possible in their final year of high school."
Umthombo students are selected based on their acceptance to study the health degree of their choice at a national institution. They must come from the rural areas currently targeted by Umthombo, they must be in need of financial assistance and they must have done voluntary work at a local hospital.
Lastly, potential candidates undergo an interview and sign a contract to come back and work in the rural area that they came from.
The process then begins. "Mentoring support and financial support are not enough," says MacGregor. Their support programme includes academic mentoring; assistance with study skills, time management courses; holding students to account; and expecting students to see lecturers or seek out support at their departments.
"Rural students are shy by nature and when they arrive at university they're not seen as cool because they don't have cellphones or the right clothes, so the chances of them putting their hands up during lectures to say they don't understand...it's not going to happen."
A critical factor that is also not addressed by many bursary schemes is social support. MacGregor says most of the rural students they encounter face social problems. "We spend time helping them think about the longterm implications of their decisions in this regard. For example, if a student left university for two weeks to attend to family demands, it could cost them dearly. We would encourage them to say, 'I have the opportunity to study, that's what I have to focus on now. When I qualify I will have money to support family'."
We also talk to them about HIV Aids. The issue of HIV Aids becomes really relevant when the student has future prospects, because if the rural youth don't have opportunities, they care less if they have Aids.
"We encourage students by saying 'you got this far – you got into university, you found someone to fund you, when you qualify you'll have a job, but one thing that will wipe that out is Aids'. We talk to them about sexual relationships and equip them to make good decisions about their futures," says MacGregor.
The programme has had a great success rate. Of the 103 students who passed through the programme between 1999 to 2007, only 14 have been excluded by universities from further study, giving the students an 86.5 percent success rate and a 13.5 percent drop-out rate – far exceeding the national average success rate of all undergraduate students in the tertiary sector, and is much lower than the national average undergraduate drop-out rate in the sector.
For Umthombo students like Siphamandla, the sky is the limit. After today's graduation he will be returning to the Mosvold District.
Apart from uplifting his community with newfound skills in psychology, he will be working with Umthombo in rural schools to tell his story to those who hope to follow in his footsteps.
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