Ntombenhle Khathwane lost everything to get her natural hair product on shelves. How she is now weaving her way into 150 big retail stores and counting.
Ntombenhle Khathwane hasn’t had the easiest of lives. Her father was polygamous and her parents separated when she was young.
“I am from a very traditional society in Swaziland. Even though my parents were married and were Catholic, which doesn’t allow polygamy, he [dad] always desired polygamy. In my mind, he was cheating but I think in his mind, he was just being a man,” she says.
When her father left to live with another woman, Khathwane, at the age of 16, fell pregnant.
“The guy I had a child with was like a father figure to me even though he is only five years older... I only let go of anger issues towards my dad about three years ago,” she says.
The baby was a wakeup call. She moved to Nelspruit, northeastern South Africa, with her mother, where she continued with school.
“I had to hide the fact that I had a kid. Everyone kept my secret. It focused me to work hard and pass.”
Her hard work paid off. She went on to tertiary school and graduated with an aim to make her mark in developing the continent.
“It made sense for me to go into government work but I quickly learned that government is just bureaucracy, things happen too slowly, even when a policy is implemented and it’s not working, it takes too long for them to stop and try something new.”
Khathwane says she got bored and disenchanted. She swapped her job for entrepreneurship.
“Whenever we went around communities in Mpumalanga, people were dependent on government social grants. There was no hope. It was so sad to me. People also spoke of booming industries in Nelspruit but there were very few of those owned by black people. That was not the South Africa or new democracy I wanted to see,” says Khathwane.
Bu hikaye Forbes Woman Africa dergisinin Aug - Sept 2016 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Forbes Woman Africa dergisinin Aug - Sept 2016 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
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