Nokukhanya Nyalunga was so consumed with becoming a teacher that at one stage her family nicknamed her "Mistress".
With female teachers commonly referred to as "mistress" in townships, young Nyalunga adored her nickname.
Little did her family know the energetic girl who participated in many school activities was still very far from deciding on what career path to take.
After matriculating with good marks from Limpopo's Hoërskool Warmbad in 2008, she enrolled for a bachelor of social science in industrial psychology degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Nyalunga still needed more time to decide on a career and switched to a clinical and health science degree, which launched the journey that culminated in her becoming a dentist.
"I thought it would be fun working in a hospital, something I'd never imagined," she said.
Nyalunga's small body structure and baby face grossly belie her age, leading to many people mistaking her for a teenager.
However, the 29-year-old already runs her own dental practices in Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga, and Monsterlus, Limpopo.
She gives her mother credit for pushing her to start her own practice.
Raised by her grandmother in the township of Mhluzi in the small coal-mining town of Middelburg in Mpumalanga, she thought she was destined to be a teacher.
She suspects her father, who was a teacher, may have unwittingly influenced her initial career choice.
"I was a bright pupil, I excelled in projects and activities I participated in," she said.
Her family was involved in a retail and franchise business in Pretoria and Siyabuswa, which afforded her the opportunity to help out in the family businesses during school holidays.
"I would say that influenced me in coming back to work in the community," she said.
She believes she eventually made a good career choice.
"In my years of schooling I saw that our people are ignorant of oral health in general as they only go to the dentist when there's pain,"
She added: "Sometimes the damage is really bad and they can't afford better treatment options other than extraction."
She lists Destiny magazine founder Khanyi Dhlomo, former Miss South Africa Basetsana Kumalo and businesswoman Carol Bouwer as some of her role models.
"They prove that women can do great exploits and master whatever they put their focus on, which is phenomenal."
She ran an oral care campaign, sponsored by Colgate in 2016, in which she visited primary schools in Siyabuswa, advising pupils about the importance of taking care of their teeth.
Her future plans include taking oral care campaigns to more primary schools in other areas of Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
When asked where she would like to see herself in 10 years, she said: "I want to have established dental surgeries, to have also completed all the oral health projects that I currently do ... and venture into other streams of medicine to improve our societies' health and physical wellbeing."
Her own people's smile keeper
Image: Supplied
Nokukhanya Nyalunga was so consumed with becoming a teacher that at one stage her family nicknamed her "Mistress".
With female teachers commonly referred to as "mistress" in townships, young Nyalunga adored her nickname.
Little did her family know the energetic girl who participated in many school activities was still very far from deciding on what career path to take.
After matriculating with good marks from Limpopo's Hoërskool Warmbad in 2008, she enrolled for a bachelor of social science in industrial psychology degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Nyalunga still needed more time to decide on a career and switched to a clinical and health science degree, which launched the journey that culminated in her becoming a dentist.
"I thought it would be fun working in a hospital, something I'd never imagined," she said.
Nyalunga's small body structure and baby face grossly belie her age, leading to many people mistaking her for a teenager.
However, the 29-year-old already runs her own dental practices in Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga, and Monsterlus, Limpopo.
She gives her mother credit for pushing her to start her own practice.
Raised by her grandmother in the township of Mhluzi in the small coal-mining town of Middelburg in Mpumalanga, she thought she was destined to be a teacher.
She suspects her father, who was a teacher, may have unwittingly influenced her initial career choice.
"I was a bright pupil, I excelled in projects and activities I participated in," she said.
Her family was involved in a retail and franchise business in Pretoria and Siyabuswa, which afforded her the opportunity to help out in the family businesses during school holidays.
"I would say that influenced me in coming back to work in the community," she said.
She believes she eventually made a good career choice.
"In my years of schooling I saw that our people are ignorant of oral health in general as they only go to the dentist when there's pain,"
She added: "Sometimes the damage is really bad and they can't afford better treatment options other than extraction."
She lists Destiny magazine founder Khanyi Dhlomo, former Miss South Africa Basetsana Kumalo and businesswoman Carol Bouwer as some of her role models.
"They prove that women can do great exploits and master whatever they put their focus on, which is phenomenal."
She ran an oral care campaign, sponsored by Colgate in 2016, in which she visited primary schools in Siyabuswa, advising pupils about the importance of taking care of their teeth.
Her future plans include taking oral care campaigns to more primary schools in other areas of Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
When asked where she would like to see herself in 10 years, she said: "I want to have established dental surgeries, to have also completed all the oral health projects that I currently do ... and venture into other streams of medicine to improve our societies' health and physical wellbeing."
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