Each morning, miners line up to travel underground into the shafts at Sibanye-Stillwater, while Mandla Mngadi braces himself for another demanding shift.
As an on-setter underground, he carries workers and equipment into the depths of the mine and safely back up again. It is a heavy and risky responsibility that he takes seriously.
But Mngadi’s vision stretches beyond the cage he operates.
For him, education is the true engine of transformation. And in his journey as both a veteran mineworker and a National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) leader, he has seen first-hand how initiatives like the NUM-established JB Marks Education Trust Fund and its introduction of Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) programmes have lit a path from illiteracy to empowerment.
“Education is a mineworker’s dream. People who came into the mining industry illiterate got an opportunity to join the Abet programmes. They started to learn how to write, how to read, and then they started to speak English,” Mngadi recalls.
That first step opened doors, he says. Literacy gave workers dignity, confidence, and the ability to navigate beyond the shafts. In the past, mines were places known for illiteracy. Before 1987, many miners could not even sign their names. The introduction of Abet that year was a turning point.
Abet laid the foundation, but the real transformation came with the JB Marks Education Trust Fund in the 1990s. Mngadi sees a direct link. Abet equipped workers with literacy, JB Marks-funded bursaries gave mineworkers’ children the opportunity to further their studies and obtain degrees.
“Education can change the life of an ordinary mineworker to be a mine boss,” he explains. He’s seen colleagues who started as general workers rise to become engineering managers. Some graduates funded by JB Marks have achieved PhDs. This was once unimaginable for mining families.
For Mngadi, this isn’t just individual achievement. “When you are a black child, you don’t look after only yourself, but the entire family. Education lifts the whole household.”
Education can change the life of an ordinary mineworker to be a mine boss
— Mandla Mngadi, mineworker and NUM leader
Mngadi credits visionary NUM leaders like former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe and mineral & petroleum resources minister Gwede Mantashe with laying down the track for this journey.
The duo recognised that the mineworkers’ fight was not only about wages and decent employment, but about dignity and future opportunities. Their decision to establish JB Marks still changes lives three decades later.
Mngadi says his pride is most palpable during graduation ceremonies. “We know their fathers, we know their parents, we work with them, we know how difficult their home situations are. It brings a lot of hope when your child graduates.”
Graduations are more than ceremonies. They are proof that years of toil underground can be translated into degrees, careers, and new beginnings. They are also proof that mineworkers’ sacrifices are not in vain.
He says in mining towns, one graduate changes the story for everyone. Communities once resigned to poverty now see possibilities. Younger siblings aspire to university. Parents believe in education.
The ripple effect extends beyond families into entire regions.
But Mngadi is honest about the difficulties. NUM relies solely on member subscriptions, and as workplaces shrink, sustaining JB Marks becomes harder.
“If industries such as mining, energy, construction, metal, can see the importance of funding JB Marks, then it can change many more lives in the next generation,” he says.
From Abet classrooms teaching workers to read and write, to JB Marks bursaries producing doctors, engineers, and managers, Mngadi has seen the full arc of transformation. He carries the miners’ dream forward with simple words: “With JB Marks, there is light, there is a future.”
This article was sponsored by Mineworkers Investment Trust.
