Featured Students: Brenda Tame and Lesego Magana from CIDA City Campus
CIDA City Campus students, Brenda Tame and Lesego Magana
INTERVIEWS AT CIDA PARK EXTENSION
INTERVIEW: BRENDATAME, 2ND YEAR BBA STUDENT
“There’s a real sense of community here at CIDA Park Extension,” says 21 year old Brenda Tame (left), a second year BBA student at CIDA.
Brenda grew up in a family of four siblings in the rural area of Qwa-Qwa, in the Free State, a province of South Africa. Her Dad died when she was a toddler and her Mom, who was a teacher at a local school, struggled to make ends meet and keep the family together.
Brenda, who was always a promising student, spent her high school years at a boarding school some 250 kms away, in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
She now lives in Maponya House, one of the buildings that has been made habitable for occupation in CIDA Park Extension.
“At school I enjoyed science and my mother managed to save enough to put me through my first year of electrical engineering at the Vaal University of Technology in Gauteng,” she says. “But with several mouths still to feed at home, my Mom’s money soon ran out and I had to leave after my first year. Then, one day, I read a newspaper article about CIDA. I applied right away and was accepted.”
With no business skills and a need to learn the basics as well as to upgrade some of her other school subjects, Brenda entered her Foundation Year in 2007. She has never looked back and is an enthusiatic student of finance and investments.
“I’ve found a good place in CIDA. There’s lots of encouragement from lecturers and lots of support from the other students.We’re a community. There are outside people who come in and give us lectures, too, and that is always interesting. I’ve made good friends here, including Lesego.” (right)
As part of her commitment to the Extranet programme that instils social responsibility in CIDA students, Brenda has been actively working for SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise). This is an organisation that teaches school pupils about HIV and AIDS. In addition, she’s been voted Treasurer of SASCO (South African Student Congress), and now spends much of her spare time going into schools to teach business skills to high school students. She thoroughly enjoys teaching others and playing a role in the lives and the future of these schoolchildren.
Brenda plans to become an economist in the future and, with her abilities and the confidence, determination and enthusiasm she exudes, it looks like her dream will certainly come true.
INTERVIEW: LESEGO MAGANA, 1ST YEAR BBA STUDENT
Lesego Magana (above, right) is 23. She grew up in the cosmopolitan suburb of Hillbrow that borders the city of Johannesburg. Social conditions there have deteriorated over the years and, in her early teens, she moved with her father to Spruitview, a sprawling and somewhat impoverished township outside Johannesburg.
Lesego loves being at CIDA where she’s a first-year BBA student specialising in marketing.
Like her good friend Brenda Tame, Lesego started her studies elsewhere but the family finances ran out and she was unable to complete her studies.
She was told about CIDA by a friend who, she says, graduated from CIDA and has transformed her life and that of her family, through her studies and the excellent job she got afterwards. “I decided that, if she did it, I could too!” she says.
Lesego was not required to undertake a Foundation Year, and started her studies at CIDA this year.
“I enjoy my studies and I like having other students around to turn to. The feeling of community is great and we help support each other.”
“It’s better for me to live in Maponya House at CIDA Park Extension than at home. Here I find I can concentrate on my studies. It’s hard work doing my degree, but I’m loving it here.”
Lesego plans to put her creativity to use in the field of marketing when she graduates, and is confident that she will make a success of her life in the future. In the meantime, as part of her social responsibility efforts, she is part of the CIDA Spark team, a group of students who help CIDA by undertaking public relations tasks, meeting with visitors and showing them around the campus.
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