Emalahleni– Bongani Arthurnaseous Nkosi, a semi-elite athlete and Secretary General of the Emalahleni City Marathon, has been using his energy to make a difference by helping matriculants from impoverished communities gain a fair shot at life.
In 2021, he founded the Cover My Book Foundation, a youth-led nonprofit that focuses on covering notebooks of learners from underprivileged backgrounds.
Nkosi recalls a traumatising incident during his elementary school, where a teacher shouted at a pupil — ‘I will never ever mark or control a book that is naked!’ — referring to an uncovered schoolbook.
The teacher, Nkosi recalls, threw back the book at the learner, publicly shaming the learner for something beyond their control. Though Nkosi came from a middle class income home where his parents could afford, moments like these left lasting emotional scars for him, and worse for the learners whose self-esteem was reduced to nothing merely for being poor— a background they had no voting in.
This painful memory, however, became the seed that would later propel him to ensure that no other learner has to go through the same experience.
It is for this reason that the vision of the foundation is to help learners reach their full potential despite financial or social barriers. Its core values and goals are to collect donations of book covers, stationery and mini-lunch packs for distribution at schools, aiming to restore dignity and enthusiasm for learning.
At the moment Cover My Book only assists primary schoolgoers with covering their notebooks and for those in their final high school year, the foundation has a Higher Institution Registration Drive, a key initiative that pays for a university registration fee to deserving students. This initiative, Nkosi says, is supported by Mementoes Trading 1988 (Pty) Ltd, along with various stakeholders and educational institutions.
And with the support of friends and caring individuals, Nkosi’s work has become easier, thus leading to the gradual growth of the foundation. Their short-term goals are to expand to more schools in Emalahleni and increase participation in the Higher Institution Registration Drive.
And for the long run, he wants to be able to help cover notebooks of pupils in secondary schools and to ensure that every deserving matriculant is assisted with the registration process upon being offered a space to further their studies at tertiary level.
Despite so much that he has achieved with his team, one of the ongoing challenges is that some schools underestimate them simply because they do not have a well-known donor behind the initiative.
By empowering minds with knowledge, protecting resources, and educating future generations, the Foundation serves as a testament to the impact of youth-led initiatives in Emalahleni.
