Zinhle Mapumulo

Zinhle Mapumulo

The future promising for Happy Sindane (24) because he will soon be joining the ranks of the employed.

Starting on November 1 he will work for a car dealership, Promedic Motor Retail Management, in Benoni on the East Rand.

Sindane made headlines in 2003 when he walked into the Bronkhorstspruit police station in Mpumalanga and asked police to help him find his parents.

He told them Abbey Mzayiya could not be his biological mother because she was black and he white.

But Mzayiya was later proved to be his mother.

Though he still has no position at the dealership, the employer has assured him he is on the payroll.

In blue jeans and a white golf T-shirt, Sindane said: "I am very happy and grateful for this opportunity.

"I know that they are taking a gamble by hiring someone who's never worked and has suffered mental illness. I will not disappoint them."

Mandla Madlopha, business development director at the dealership, said they would mentor and train Sindane for a position that will best suit him.

"Sindane is inexperienced but we'll pay for his driver's licence so that his training, including salesmanship, can begin," said Madlopha.

Sindane lost his grandparents Mantuli and Koos Sindane early this year.

"It's been really hard since my grandmother died. I was without a job and money to buy food. I feared I might go back to my old ways, but Madlopha saved me," he said.

Sindane had been living with his grandparents in Tweefontein, Mpumalanga, since 2004.