NOT allowing disability to stop the things he wishes for in life and his future has borne fruit for Mr. Siyabonga Khumalo, who lives with disability due to his extreme shortness and dwarfism.
Khumalo (21) is one of the 153 students who graduated from different fields by the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), who successfully passed 21 courses, received 14 certificates and six of which he was honored by the Dean for doing well in the Bachelor of Social Science field, which he passed with summa cum laude.
This teenager, who is 120 cm tall, was born with scoliosis, a disability that affects the way the spine grows, but that did not stop him from achieving the good things he grew up wishing for with his life.
In 2022, he completed his matric at Sarel Cilliers High, Glencore, in the north of KwaZulu-Natal, where he was awarded the Dux Scholar – an award given to a student who has beaten everyone in the head at this school.
“When I got to the university, I continued where I left off in the upper grades, I told myself that to pass with honors is to get 80% or more in the course, which helped me to pass in the way it happened now,” he said.
This young person is not only doing well in academics as in this university she was part of different programs including Golden Key International Honor Society, Campus HIV and AIDS Support Unit and Differently Abled Student Association.
And now Khumalo is already continuing his education as he is doing an honors degree, which he did with the aim of having a doctorate at the age of 40, which will help him a lot to become a clinical psychologist.