A Good (Mo) Hair Day

"Beauty Mokgwamme had other dreams, but circumstances took her exactly where she was meant to be."

- By Sandy Coffey

Beauty Mokgwamme exudes positivity and energy: you feel recharged just from being around her. When we meet, she’s just four days away from giving birth to her third child, yet she’s calm, relaxed… and at work. She is totally committed to her job as manager of Mohair South Africa’s Empowerment Trust Programme.

Beauty is passionate about farming, but it wasn’t always her dream. She grew up in rural North West, the younger sister to two adoring older brothers. Her father worked in Rustenburg on the mines, sending money home every month. Her mother was a domestic worker who infused the family with the values of love, caring for and accommodating others, respect for land and animals, and honesty.

Everything changed when Beauty’s father died. The finances dried up and her university plans were thwarted. She decided to pursue a career in agriculture. During her last few years at school she’d found herself becoming increasingly interested in it as a subject, and she knew she had a chance of getting a bursary to an agriculture college. So she started applying to colleges, and eventually settled on Grootfontein Agri­ cultural Development Institute in Middelburg. She was awarded the bursary she was so dependent on.