Offers of help give hope to Bonteheuwel teen

Cape Town – 160129 – Clayton Pieterse, from Bonteheuwel visits the sea side behind the V&A Waterfront Mall’s parking lot with his sister, Candice Pieterse. He says the ocean gives his the courage to keep on looking for a job in the city. Photographer: Armand Hough

Cape Town – 160129 – Clayton Pieterse, from Bonteheuwel visits the sea side behind the V&A Waterfront Mall’s parking lot with his sister, Candice Pieterse. He says the ocean gives his the courage to keep on looking for a job in the city. Photographer: Armand Hough

Published Feb 9, 2016

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Cape Town - Bonteheuwel teen Clayton Pieters is confident he will finally be able to achieve his dream of becoming a physiotherapist.

The 19-year-old has been inundated with offers of help after the Cape Argus published a story about his battle to improve his maths and science marks in order for him to be accepted into his chosen field of study.

On the days Pieters was due to write his matric exams, there had been gang-related shootings in the suburb, resulting in him scoring 22 percent for maths and science.

He achieved good grades for his other subjects and achieved a Bachelor’s pass.

Pieters said the assistance he has been offered has given him hope.

“I have been stressing a lot about what I’m going to do because I was unable to improve my marks.

“But after the offers I’ve received I can finally follow my dream of becoming a physiotherapist,” he added on Monday.

Over the past week, the Cape Argus was flooded with offers to help Pieters, from companies offering jobs to individuals offering advice and funding for studies.

Pieters said it is great that people want to help after reading his story.

“My family is excited because my sister and I can go to school.”

When the Cape Argus contacted him yesterday, he was registering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).

Read: ‘We can’t see a way out of Bonteheuwel’

“Education is very expensive, especially because what I want to study is offered at university. I’m really grateful for the help I’m getting,” he said.

Pieters matriculated in 2014, and said he was one of 10 pupils in matric at Bonteheuwel High. The Grade 8 classes have up to 80 pupils, he said.

His sister, Candice, spoke of how institutions looked at his results. “They look at his marks and they reject him, but they don’t see that on the day that the exam was written, they (gangsters) were shooting and he came running back home on his way to school.”

Pieters said: “I was walking and these two guys on the field told me ‘it’s not safe now’, so I turned around and ran.”

Candice said once the gunfire had subsided, her brother ran to school to write his maths exam.

“How can he be expected to perform well when he’s living like that?”

Graeme Shepherd of Incline, a company that helps pupils improve their matric results, said he was moved by the article published in the Cape Argus, and knew he had to do something.

“He sounded like he had problems and we wanted to help him improve his results. Everyone we have helped has gone on to study at university,” said Shepherd.

Wendy Ackerman, of the Pick n Pay and Ackerman Family Educational Trust, said she has been assisting pupils for many years.

“It’s part of what I do, I help where I can. His situation was spoiling his future, living in a gang-ridden area.”

Ackerman said they offer bursaries, pay school fees and provide stationery for their beneficiaries.

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Fatima Chohan had also offered to help Pieters achieve his dream of becoming a physiotherapist. “In life we have second chances, and it’s good that he will get his as well. We will assist him where we can. He is a young man who has his life ahead of him, and it’s good that people are coming out to help him.”

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Cape Argus

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