Thulani Madondo

Biography

Thulani Madondo is the cofounder and Executive Director of Kliptown Youth Program, a South African youth development organization created to help young people from the informal settlement of Kliptown move out of poverty. Thulani himself was born in a one room shack in Kliptown without electricity or running water, so he understands the problems facing Kliptown youth. KYP aims to help these youth break the cycle of poverty that has existed in Kliptown for a long time by providing academic support and homework assistance, sports, nutrition, and computer literacy to 400 children and youth from the Kliptown community. Thulani served as a core member in the inaugural City Year South Africa class in 2005. Thulani participated in other community development programs for 7 years prior to founding KYP in 2007. In 2012, Thulani was honoured as one of the Top 10 CNN Heroes from a pool of 45,000 nominations. His experiences have also awarded him the Humanitarian of the Year Award from Turkey Worldwide Visibility. In June 2013, Thulani was named one of 200 Young South Africans making a difference by the South African publication Mail & Guardian and completed a Strategic Perspective in Non-profit Management at Harvard Business School in July 2013. In all the great achievements this young man has accomplished, in the year 2013 he was awarded as a Role Model of the year by the Feather awards. Thulani still continues to serve his community as a leader and enforcer of change. In 2015 he was chosen as one of the 21 ICONS, this initiative looks at great leaders in South Africa who are bringing change and are representing the country globally. Great leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu are profiled under the 21ICONS. In 2016 Thulani completed a Certificate in Project Management at The University of Witwatersrand.
To date, Thulani till the executive Director of Kliptown Youth Program and leading the organization youth to be the architects of their own exit strategy from poverty.