An autistic boy is doing well at school after South Africans reached into their pockets to fund his education through a crowdfunding platform.

Siboniso, 11, did not attend school because of the cost and spent his days under a tree in KwaNyuswa, 170km south of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal.

However, by Thursday morning, a BackaBuddy campaign had raised R77 079.29 on a target of R40 000 to facilitate his attendance at a special needs school in his area.

READ: Autistic boy, 11, will finally be going to school after ‘teaching’ himself under tree

Non-profit organisation The Angel Network created the campaign to ensure that Siboniso was afforded an education.

“I’d never met him. He’s based in KwaZulu-Natal. We put it on Facebook on our page and we started getting R10 000 to R20 000,” Angel Network founder Glynne Wolman told News24.

She said the donations increased once online media platforms reported his story.

The money is carefully managed to ensure that Siboniso’s needs are met.

‘Dearest soul’

“He goes to school on Monday and goes home on Friday. There’s more than enough money to cover school, stationery and transport,” said Wolman.

Dawn Harrison deals with children who have learning disabilities and manages Siboniso’s funds.

“He’s only been at school for five days. There’ll be no academic progress as yet,” she told News24.

“He initially refused to go to the dining hall in the evening, but he is settling down well. The teacher loves the boy; he is the dearest soul.”

The crowdfunding model has shown to be effective in driving donations to needy causes and BackaBuddy has put systems in place to prevent abuse of the platform.

Chief operating officer Catherine Du Plooy told News24 that BackaBuddy offers to manage funds on behalf of the campaign creators, and pay institutions in the case of student campaigns, of which there are many.

“For this reason, we offer the option to manage funds for our campaign creators and pay universities and other relevant intuitions directly to ensure donor peace of mind when supporting students. BackaBuddy-assisted campaigns also tend to raise more funds,” she said.

Campaigns

In 2018 alone, more than R35m was raised on BackaBuddy and more than 1 800 new crowdfunding campaigns were launched.

The platform has raised R89.2m in total.

Some of the new student campaigns include aspiring engineer Brighton Manaba, 22, and Luntu Masiza, 27, from Khayelitsha, who was suspended from AFDA for outstanding fees four months before finishing her degree.

“Campaigns usually raise more funds if driven by close family members or a friend who is passionate about the beneficiary and what they are trying to achieve,” Du Plooy added.

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Three people have been shot dead and many injured, Zimbabwe’s main opposition party said on Tuesday, as security forces crack down on protests triggered by a sharp, sudden rise in fuel prices.

The streets of the capital Harare were deserted a day after widespread demonstrations when public anger erupted over the country’s worsening economic crisis.

Zimbabwe’s mobile phone networks and internet were partially shut down, with one industry source saying the systems had been jammed and many users were complaining of severely limited access.

The government more than doubled petrol prices at the weekend after months of shortages that saw drivers queueing for hours to fill up. Essentials such as bread and medicine have also been scarce.

“The information we have received is that two people were shot dead in Chitungwiza (on the outskirts of Harare) and one person in Kadoma (town),” MDC opposition party spokesperson Jacob Mafume told AFP.

“This is needless loss of lives. Many have been injured, some of them seriously.” He gave no further details.

Amnesty reported that eight people had died, without giving a source, and criticised “repressive measures” taken by the government to quash the protests.

On Tuesday morning, police fired tear gas in Zimbabwe’s second city Bulawayo after protesters chanted for the removal of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was on an official visit to Moscow.

An AFP reporter witnessed looting in the city, a stronghold of opposition to the ruling Zanu-PF party.

 ‘Police beat me’ 

Most shops remained closed in Harare, and minibus taxis that usually transport workers from the suburbs to the city centre were not running.

In the suburb of Kuwadzana, police were on patrol and forcing people off the streets.

One resident, Tawanda Mataya, said police had beaten him and slapped his 17-year-old son.

“It’s so painful,” Mataya told AFP showing swellings on his back.

“I was standing at my gate to assess whether I could go to work then this group of police who were passing by started beating me.

“My son who heard me screaming and opened the window to see what was happening was slapped several times.”

Mnangagwa announced the fuel price hike in a televised address late on Saturday, saying it was needed to tackle severe shortages and illegal trading.

He replaced longtime ruler and autocrat Robert Mugabe following a military takeover in 2017, before winning a disputed election in July.

Speaking during his visit to Russia, Mnangagwa said the fuel price increase “was necessary and still is”.

On Monday, police dispersed hundreds of protesters who burnt tyres, erected barricades and looted businesses on the first day of a three-day general strike.

Security Minister Owen Ncube said the security action caused “loss of life” without giving figures on the number of dead and wounded.

 Economy in ruins 

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said 13 people had sustained gunshot wounds in and around Harare on Monday. At least 200 people were arrested.

Zimbabwe’s economy has been in dire straits since hyperinflation wiped out savings between 2007 and 2009, when the Zimbabwean dollar was abandoned in favour of the US currency.

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Zimbabweans mainly rely on electronic payments as US dollar notes are in short supply. The local “bond note” currency, introduced in 2016, is little trusted and falling in value.

Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa blamed the protests on “terrorism”.

“Threats to overthrow a constitutionally elected government by force and install an unelected person as president of Zimbabwe will be thwarted,” she vowed.

The Zimbabwe Trade Union Confederation (ZCTU) reiterated its call to continue the strike.

“Today it’s day two of the Shutdown. We urge workers and citizens everywhere to stay at home,” ZCTU tweeted. “There must be economic reforms for the poor to survive.”

Mnangagwa – Mugabe’s former deputy – has claimed that he represents a fresh start for the country and has vowed to revive the economy by attracting foreign investment.

Two days after July’s election in July, soldiers opened fire using live bullets on protesters in Harare, leaving six dead.

A mother and her two children were shopping in Somerset West on Monday morning when a man approached them and stabbed one of the children, Western Cape police confirmed.

The family had been walking in Waterstone Village shopping centre when it happened at around 09:15, said Captain Hein Hendricks.

“Both children (a boy and a baby) were inside a shopping trolley with the five-year-old boy sitting in the front,” he said.

The man walked towards the trolley, took out a knife and stabbed the boy in the chest.

Hendricks said the mother, together with security guards, apprehended the man.

‘We urge parents to be vigilant’

He was arrested on a charge of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The boy was understood to be in a stable condition.

Centre manager Daphne Kriel said that they were thankful for their Halt security guard who recognised the man from when he was in the vicinity on Friday, and grabbed him in this morning’s incident.

While speculation on social media has been rife about the man’s motive, with some alleging it was an attempted child abduction, Hendricks said the circumstances were still being investigated.

Kriel said: “We are so thankful that both the children are not harmed, but we urge our parents to be also vigilant in today’s day and age”.

The man is expected to appear in the Somerset West Magistrate’s Court once he has been charged.

When Capetonian Andrew Patterson was retrenched it seemed his world had come tumbling down around him, but instead of curling up in a heap of despair, he walked up Table Mountain every day for a year to raise money for charity.

Speaking after taking some time out after his final walk on Dec 31, Patterson told News24 that when he heard the axe was going to fall at his job at a big beverage company, he was terrified. 

“It was nerve wracking. It was the worst time of my life,” said Patterson.

Deep down he knew he was not getting anymore satisfaction out of the corporate world, but he was stuck in a cycle of just working to keep his salary. 

To fill his soul he had started volunteering for charities, and had spent the previous three years leading small groups up the mountain in his spare time.  

Stuck in traffic near the Good Hope Centre, with eight days left to final severance in 2017, he had an epiphany.

He decided he was going to walk up Table Mountain every day, and he was going to get people to sponsor him for charity while he did it. 

He was also going to try and get people to see South Africa and each other without negativity.

Because he had worked for a long time, he received a retrenchment package and had savings that he could live off if he managed his money carefully.

Walked through rain, scorching heat and pumping wind

“I also got rid of a lot of things – you know, those things around the house that you carry around every time you move but you never use,” he said. 

He also changed his lifestyle to keep himself afloat financially. 

“I thought: ‘If you squander all your money you will spend your life in debt and you will never be able to do it’.”

And so, from January 1, 2018, he walked up Platteklip Gorge every day. 

He set up a BackaBuddy page, and solicited donations for three charities from people who wanted to walk with him – Habitat for Humanity, the Sunflower Fund and One Heart for Kids.

By the end, he raised R367 000 through his challenge which he called “365 UbuntuClimbs” and even though his one year quest has stopped, people are still donating towards his goal of raising R1m. 

BackaBuddy said that so far, books have been provided for three of the Western Cape’s poorest schools in Stellenbosch, Klapmuts and Kayamandi for the One Heart for Kids programme.

Through Habitat for Humanity, 10 families living in shacks in Baphumelele, Khayelitsha had their homes upgraded to be drier, safer and warmer.

Patterson was also involved in two donor drives for the Sunflower Fund that added 30 donors to their registry of stem cell donors to help people fighting blood diseases like leukemia.

He walked through rain, scorching heat, and the pumping Cape Town wind.

He also kept a video diary which he posted on Facebook detailing his physical, emotional and spiritual journey.

He said it was heartwarming to see people from all walks of life and levels of fitness make their way up the gorge with him, and he very quickly found that he had become less judgemental and more accepting of people.

He watched people push themselves beyond their own capabilities, which he found very humbling and inspiring. He said he also experienced ubuntu in abundance from the 8-year-old to the 73-year-old who walked with him. 

A highlight was walking with Lifa Hlongwa, who had been told he would never walk again after a rugby injury. Hlongwa proved his doctors wrong by working hard at the Sports Science Institute and walking with his crutches with Patterson.

Patterson’s motto on his blog is: “If you have the opportunity to do amazing things in your life, bring someone with you.”

In one of his vlogs (video blogs) he says the key to success is self-belief and even though there were days he did not think he would make it, he put one foot in front of the other and carried on. 

So what now for the man who calls himself a “deep thinker”?

He plans to spend time with his girlfriend Jessie Smith, who is from San Francisco in the US, and hopes to travel there to share his experiences and the life lessons he learned. 

He will continue with the talks he started giving at schools and clubs and will write a book based on his daily walking journal.