Robert Hargrove

A Mentoring Tale

So much has changed since Mandela’s release and those far off days since I visited South Africa. Yet one side effect of the dreaded Apartheid is a phenomenon called “Street Kids,” estimated to number in the thousands even today. The circumstances for some parents were and are still often so adverse that the children are left to grin and bear it or leave to find another place to sleep and get food. They are faced with the unhappy reality of increasing separation from their natural families and become at risk for losing their limited access to basic facilities, such as health, education, and recreation.

Interestingly enough, this week I received a very inspiring letter from a South African woman by the name of Julia Paris. I was so moved with Julia’s passion for coaching, mentoring and making a difference. She is a Master Coach for a young South African fellow I will call Mr. ABZ who is launching a mentoring program for street kids.

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your personal response, and taking time out to write back to me. It is greatly appreciated. I am so excited to get a direct feedback mail from you. Your response delighted me so much that I have decided to take up your challenge and find the money to bring you out to South Africa.

I wish to be your first student and coachee/mentee when you get here. I have been coaching and mentoring young professionals since 2000 and am still doing it amongst hectic work hours and community coaching of women on personal power issues. I have been training with Coaches and feel that I still have some way to go. I love networking and advocacy and do occasional networking workshops for entrepreneurs over weekends.

As you can see, I am not a person who can be idle. I am an avid reader of business books and easily read up to 10 books a month. I do not read negative daily news, only business/investment matters and daily TV watching is kept to the minimum. My philosophy in life is people first. I have now added your philosophy of breakthrough for people for breakthrough results. I have both your books in our library –“Coach in a Book” and “Masterful Coaching.” I hope to order the others as well.

I am resident in Johannesburg and am working at the University of Johannesburg. I am part of the university’s mentoring program, mentoring administrative employees. I was also a mentor for the Business Woman’s Association of South Africa. My passion is coaching – Life, Leadership, and Spiritual.

I trained under a life coach, business coach, spiritual coach (Navajo Indian American woman from Mexico – online) and a Master Consciousness Coach up to Master Level II. The latter being Marc Steinberg a German Masterful Consciousness Coach resident in Cape Town.

The ABZ project I am involved in is so powerful and exciting that I wanted to involve a guru like you in this exciting phenomena that has hit Johannesburg and I imagine South Africa and Africa possibly. I will send you some documents and pictures to see for yourself.

This is how it started: My campus is a city campus in the heart of the Johannesburg CBD. It is situated next to a bridge where a lot of student muggings happened due to street kids and vagrants who lived under the bridge. On the bridge someone did a graffiti which reads “God Bless this Bridge.”

One morning one of our campus students was walking to campus and encountered the street kids sleeping and living in squalor under the bridge. It touched him in such a way that he on the spot committed himself, his time and energy to do something to help the street children of our suburb called Doornfontein. His name is Abe Bongane Zwane and he started what he called the ABZ project for street children.

His dream is to have 26 projects as his name covers the A-Z of the alphabet. He has more than 10 projects already and they are all growing at an alarming pace. I found them a sponsor in one of our biggest insurance companies; the university adopted the projects and sponsors some activities. Students from all four of our campuses are involved on a voluntary basis to learn leadership and life skills.

He had sent approx 250 people back home to their families already with full support networks of social services in place. And so the success stories continue. Where do I fit in? I raise funds for bursaries for needy students, to help with subsistence and living expenses. He heard of my services to the students and came to me looking for a bursary to complete his final year of study.

He was at his wits end and very desperate for help. I asked him to relax and breathe and sat him down and coached him on looking at the bright side of life as he is giving others a life line…he will be thrown one too. I promised to make an application for him to my bursary aid fund. Then I said to him as he was leaving “pray for a miracle and believe that you have received it already.” It was the end of the year and he left for home as the university was closing for the Christmas vacation.

Come registration time the following year, Abe was back. The bursary fund had not made a decision yet. I said to Abe to go and register and ask his Departmental Head for time until the end of the day. I was going to pay his fees from my own funds if he did not get the bursary. Abe left, and in 30 minutes was back fully registered… an anonymous person paid his studies in full.

Up to today we still do not know who it was. Abe had his miracle. He was tearful, elated and gobsmacked. God came through for him as he came through daily for the street children. He passed his studies with flying colors. He asked me to become his personal life and leadership coach to sustain him with developmental leadership skills. I am now officially coaching all his project leaders.

He visits me daily and every student knows him and his projects on campus. They have a project where they manufacture township electrical guitars covered with sheepskin and clay musical instruments themselves. These instruments are in great demand with SA corporates as marketing items. What Abe and his project teams have achieved is beyond amazing.

From all the gurus whose books I have read and studied, why did I choose you? I do not know. I just know you have something for us. The time to get it from you is NOW. For now…Thank you again Robert.

I will stay in touch. Julia Paris