Sabele Ntoyanto graduated from the Advanced Diploma in Marketing and Advertising Communications last year. Since then, he joined the Red & Yellow graduate programme, where we asked him to write a personal essay sharing his story.
My name is Sabele Ntoyanto and I grew up in Khayelitsha. Despite the many challenges of my environment, I was determined and worked hard to get myself a National Diploma in Public Management. Then, just when I thought I made it, I found myself back where I began, jobless and looking in the hopeless eyes of the parents I was supposed to start feeding. The disappointment of looking for work went from wanting something worth my qualification to accepting anything at all. I have worked in construction, I have been a store packer and a cleaner, but nothing that felt worth the hard work I put into my Diploma.
That’s when I realised that if you don’t have connections, you better make sure you equip yourself with valuable and practical skills that will still be relevant in the future.
I was grateful to find out that there are compassionate people out there investing in communities like mine. I did a Graphic design 5-month course with an NGO in Khayelitsha and it opened up doors for me to the best creative school in this country, Red & Yellow. I didn’t have to pay anything, thanks to the wonderful people in large companies that could afford to sponsor my studies.
Today I look at myself and my parents with pride. I know that I have acquired practical skills through my Marketing, Advertising & Communication (MAC) Advanced Diploma at Red & Yellow.
For more information on our bursary sponsorship options, check out this page.
