A former car guard has left the parking lot at a Pretoria shopping centre to pursue a Doctorate in Engineering at the University of Pretoria. Fabrice Kapya, 31, is an assistant lecturer at the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Pretoria (UP) and a PHD candidate in the subject.
The former car guard fled the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and sought asylum in South Africa in 2018. Although when he arrived in South Africa, he already had a degree in Chemical Engineering which he obtained from the University of Likasi in the DRC, Kapya arrived in South Africa with no prospects.
He began working at Wonderpark Shopping Centre as a car guard where he made about R2000 per month. “For that, I had to stand in the parking lot every day from 07:00 to 20:00,” he recalls. “I had about R900 to R1000 left a month after covering all expenses, such as rent and groceries,” Kapya said.
In August 2018, his friend applied at the University of Pretoria for him.
“I still can’t believe what happened when they let me in. When I was coming back from Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), where I had sent my application, a friend who was a student there at the time asked me to stop by UP. After a long talk, she finally got me to agree to apply to UP. But there were only two days left before international applications closed and at most universities, priority is usually given to those who apply first.”
In November 2018, Kapya was admitted to study Industrial and systems Engineering. When he started the course, he was still a car guard, and he had a language barrier and had no background of Industrial Engineering.
“While I was doing my honours modules, my classmates gave me food, paid for my transport or paid my rent, and assisted me with their notes,” he said.
In December 2019, he got a lucky break. A donor who parked her car at Kapya’s offered to pay about R18000 for his studies. He used that money to pay what he owed to UP and completed his honours in July 2020. He went on to complete his master’s and is now working towards a Doctorate.
Source: News24, Opera News, image from Times Live: Supplied/ University of Pretoria
