"I Never Felt Like an Orphan"
Sometimes you meet someone who changes the trajectory of your life. At that moment, you don’t realize the significant role that person will play in your life giving you the support, encouragement and love you never imagined.
For Mbali, meeting Miss Sophie Ndimande would be life-changing. Sophie managed the Lethabong Community Creche for pre-schoolers. She also started the Soul Sparkles, a support group for AIDS orphans which became an extended and loving family for young Mbali.
When news came that Mbali was accepted at the university and that she needed to take a psychometric test before registering at North West University, she didn’t have the money to take the test or transportation to get to Pretoria. It was Sophie who scraped together the money for the transportation. After passing her psychometric tests in Pretoria, Mbali was able to register at North West University in 2020.
It has always been Mama Sophie, as the kids at the Creche and the Soul Sparkle’s affectionately call the one person they can count on to help. Whether it’s food, clothing, advice, support, money and comfort, she is the one person the kids reach out to when no one else was there.
“My name is Innocentia Mbalenhle Maputo. I am 20 years of age, I live in…I am an official student at North West University at Mafikeng Campus.
I’d like to talk about myself, get into detail about how I grew up, who am I surrounded by and so forth.
I grew up at my grandma’s place because my mother passed at the age of 6 years. After then, my grandmother is responsible for taking care of me. When my mother passed away, I was at Creche at the Community Centre. That is when I was interviewed and I met Sophie.
By that time I was still young I still didn’t understand anything.
So there were a group of Soul Sparkles, it was founded by Miss Sophie Ndimande. When I entered the group, (the Soul Sparkles) I never felt like an orphan, regardless of the age I arrived at.
I didn’t feel like an orphan, the group was welcoming, supportive, and all of that positive things. And then, I got myself siblings, brothers and sisters, family because whenever I needed something,
or someone to cry on, I got the support, whatever I needed, I went there and got what I needed.
By 2020, I got my certificate, that was my fifth year. In June, I got an email I got into the African... so I should go to Pretoria to take a test, to determine me going to college or not, for the Bachelor of Social Work.
I didn’t have any plans but my thoughts came back to, I am a group of Soul Sparkles, and I have to go tell our mother, Sophie Ndimande about the letter, and I told her everything. I got the acceptance letter. I had to go to Pretoria and take a test on June, 2019. ”