FOR the past two years Nkosinathi Nkabinde has lived in a scrapped car that his father had left him before he died

The orphaned Grade 11 pupil from Manzana village, outside Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, had nowhere to go when the one-bedroom mud house he once shared with his father had crumbled under heavy rain and wind.

Since then he has studied, ate, and slept on the back seat of a broken down Ford Lazer.

But in less than a month he is expected to move into his own fully furnished home - built for him by a generous stranger.

Local businesswoman Maria Mlangeni responded to Nkabinde's neighbours' pleas for help because they could no longer watch him suffering, especially not during the harsh Newcastle winter.

Neighbour Khombisile Mbatha approached Mlangeni for help after watching the Buhlebomzinyathi High School pupil huddled in the car during a thunderstorm.

"We have been helping him with food and he also relies on a temporary job at brick making companies to have food and buy school uniforms," Mbatha said.

"But when he had to sleep, the scrapped car was the only option. He is not like other children in South Africa and we only recently noticed that he was sleeping in the car."

Nkabinde, a shy young man, said he decided not to leave school when his father died and did not give up on his education when he was forced to live in a car. He said he did not know where his siblings or other family members were and living in the car was his only option.

"I was not happy with living in the car but there was nothing I could do. It was the only home left by my father," he said.

Nkabinde is now excited for the first time in two years.

"I now have a home, a real home, something I did not have even while my father was alive," he said.

Unlike other Grade 11 pupils Nkabinde is also excited about studying.

"I now have a place where I can study. A warm place. I will now do my assignments and homework properly," he said.

Mlangeni declined to say how much she had spent on building and buying furniture for the house because she was so touched by Nkabinde's story that money did not matter.

Mlangeni, who owns a chain of supermarkets, butcheries and more recently a construction company, opened her purse and gave orders for the house to be built.