Since her mother’s death when she was just six years old, Gqeberha entrepreneur Yolanda Mbolompo’s life seemed to move from difficult to unbearable.
At several points she attempted to end it all, but all her suicide attempts were unsuccessful.
Now, not only is she the owner of the successful haircare business Afro Bae, she also has her finger in the property business and recently started a farming business in her home village of Mtyamde in Cofimvaba.
Before she returned to Cofimvaba to rebuild her home recently, the 30-year-old entrepreneur had unpleasant memories of the place where her older brother was brutally murdered and her grandmother’s one-room flat burnt down.
The events of her past saw her younger self carry a burden of mental illness which she never understood at the time.
“I was around six years old when I mistakenly burnt the one-room flat we lived in with my grandmother because I had forgotten to blow out the candle,” Mbolompo said.
“It turned out that my grandmother had a stroke the previous night and because I was a child and clueless, I woke up and carried on with my day.
“I thought she was just resting and covered her with a blanket.
“In the evening, I lit the candle as usual but I fell asleep with it still on,” she said.
She said her grandmother’s death was followed by the death of her mother, who was already ill.
Mbolompo lived with her grandmother and younger brother, Masixole, in Cofimvaba while their mother lived in Cape Town.
When they became homeless, they were separated from family members and went for years without seeing each other.
“My mom and grandmother were buried in the same month.
“I grew up between family members and at some point I was taken in by my high school English teacher until I finished matric,” she said.
After matric, she traced her father’s side of the family and moved to live with her paternal aunt until she found her first job in 2010.
“In 2011, I took my brother in after an elderly family member he was staying with died. I also had a baby that same year.
“At the time I was already struggling with severe depression but I didn’t know what it was.
“I just was so depressed that I thought having a child would give me a reason to live, but the pressure of having the responsibility of raising my teenage brother and my own child made things worse,” she said.
Her last of several suicide attempts landed Mbolompo in ICU for three months.
The young mother’s first business and big break, Afro Bae, was established when she struggled to find the right products for her daughter Asanda’s natural hair.
She became curious and experimented with different ingredients.
As people gained interest in the products, she did more research and turned it into a business before she resigned from her job as an underground mineworker in Carletonville.
“By the time I resigned, I had people who loved my social media posts because they were always positive.
“So when I announced my business, they bought my products to support me,” she said.
In just months, Afro Bae’s client base grew beyond Gauteng, prompting her to seek distributors who would sell the products and make money for themselves too.
Afro Bae is now distributed by more than 300 people across SA.
The entrepreneur moved to Gqeberha in 2019 where her warehouse is now based and employs six people.
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