Nkumbulo Magqabi | TCB Repair Programme | Cape Town
I’m Nkumbulo Magqabi. I was born in the Western Cape. My brother and I moved to the Eastern Cape at the age of 10 after we lost my father. We were still young and had to endure not being close to my mother and other siblings. Going to school when I was in Eastern Cape was a challenge. We’d go to school barefoot, with jerseys and trousers that didn’t fit us because we never had anyone to support us. I remember during rainy days we wouldn’t even go to school. We had many hardships like bad treatment coming from our extended family’s side and it got so bad to a point that my brother committed suicide.
After that, life for me was never the same, it felt like I lost a part of me. He was a huge part of this whole world I created in the Eastern Cape. But God works in mysterious ways, when my mother came to bury my brother, she took me back to the Western Cape. I was in the middle of doing standard three, and the schools had no space for me, I had to start doing standard 4 where there was space. I did my high school at Phakama in Philippi and after that I did short courses and in between I did electrical wiring. In 2009 I started doing acting classes. I started performing on stage, big and small, and I started doing films.
In 2017, everything fell apart, I hadn’t been working so I started looking for a 9 to 5. I started working in factories, bakeries, construction work. I did so many jobs trying to make money that I can’t even remember some of them. I had my daughter in 2018 and it felt like I was just a good for nothing father. Do you know how painful it is having to watch your kid asking you for money to go to a shop and buy sweets, but you don’t have anything to give. I’d get casting calls to attend castings, but I would decline because I didn’t have money to go to them. You can’t even have friends that are working because wherever you go, it feels like people are judging you, even if they really aren’t. It feels like someone is watching you and you always have that saying at the back of your mind that “I’m just good for nothing. Why is it that I’m not making anything out of my life?” My life was hectic.
In 2024 I had a friend who told me about TCB. And I thought, why don’t I try this? I was expecting to get there, get given appliances that I can buy and sell or borrow and then come and refund them.
I didn’t expect it to be a program where I’d get taught about business, about how to manage money, about how to fix appliances, about how to conduct yourself in front of clients. Now when I approach clients they can see I’m a professional businessman. Whereas before I approached it as a hustler. I’ve learned how to control money. I’ve learned how to be a lucrative businessman.
There is different training that we are introduced to at TCB. I can fix many appliances. I can tell you what the problem with a blender is before I even open it now.
TCB has been a life changer for me. It opened my mind to new possibilities. I am able to go and attend my castings or go wherever I’m needed. Like if there’s anything that needs my attention when it comes to my kids, if I’m needed at school, I don’t need to go and borrow money from anybody if I need to buy something for them. I wouldn’t say my life has changed to a point where I’m in a position where I feel like things are easy. It’s not, nothing is easy, but it’s never a struggle like before.
At least now I am capable of doing things I was not capable of before. When you have nothing as a person in life, it feels like you’re not saying anything because people cannot see or hear you. But I’m in a position right now where I’m with people, and they pay attention because they can see the change in me. They can see a different person than the person I was before.
TCB has just made things easy for us. I now own things that I never would have thought that I can own in my life. You know, expensive stuff. It has changed my family’s life. There was a time where I could tell that my childrens mother was drowning in debt and she was really stressing. There were times when there was something that we needed to buy for the family or house and she wouldn’t even consult me because she knew that it killed me inside that I wouldn’t have any contribution to it. It was really tormenting me. But now we’ve changed because now we do have conversations about things that we want to buy.
Being a business owner has ups and downs. What you sell, where you sell, how you sell and to who you sell – is all important things that you have to think about. My business has been doing well. I call electrical appliances “timeless” because everybody is always in need of them. I love the fact that as a businessman, you get to own your time, you get to own yourself, you’ve got to learn to be responsible, your business is your responsibility.
Knowing that my family is okay, keeps me motivated to keep going.
My advice to others who wants to be self-employed? Just follow your heart. Follow your dream. You see what you want. Go and get it. Be humble, resilient, strong, focused. Soldier on, keep your head up and walk tall. Just listen, listen, listen. We always learn every day. Don’t always know everything. We don’t know everything. So be willing to listen to others, be open to ideas and be hungry for information. Be hungry for knowledge. That would get you far.
At some point you get tempted to look at someone doing something great and say, oh, I want to be like that person, but I just focus on my own lane. I always listen to people and I take it all in. I take advice, but the best thing about me is that I’m just me. I don’t want to follow in other people’s footsteps, we all have a path that’s laid out for us in life and the best thing that I’m doing is following mine.
I want to be a good example to the ones that are coming after me who think they can’t make it in life. They also need to know you can start from scratch, you can start from nothing and end up being something in life.
My future? I grew up knowing that I I’ve always wanted to become an actor and ever since I’ve started acting, I’ve been really good at it and I wouldn’t want to change anything about it. I never actually thought that I would become this great businessman. I’ve just started falling in love with it. And my dream for my future now is to own more businesses, where I can start having partnerships and a franchise. Who knows, maybe I become one of the biggest business players in South Africa, maybe even the world!
Taking Care of Business (TCB) is a nonprofit social enterprise. We are empowering unemployed South Africans and their families to escape the cycle of poverty through small business opportunities, mostly within the circular economy.