PERSONAL PROFILE

Name: Angelique

Surname: Kruger

Gender: Female

Age: 11/01/1995

Nationality: South African

Home Language: English

Programme: BA Psychology

Start Year: 2017

Previous School: Heaphfiled high School

Local City: Cape Town

ABOUT STUDENT

I was born in Stellenbosch to a father who did not believe that I was his child, and a mother – who was emotionally unstable at the time due to my father’s infidelity, which lead to their divorce. Thus, just being a month old, I moved to my grandmother in Stenberg, who raised me until I was eight years old. Consequently, from a very young age, I experienced rejection in every way humanly possible, as well as my two older sisters and mother, respectively. All the challenges started at age eight, when my grandmother passed on and family members became greedy to take her home, a home that my mother, two sisters and I only ever knew. These family members physically threw us out on the street with our furniture, which left us homeless for a few days and highly embarrassed. From that day, I’ve never experienced or known the feeling of what a real ‘home’ is like because my family had to constantly move from one house to another – eighteen times in total. This often due to skipped child support payments from my father, traumatic housebreaking experiences in bad neighbours, or simply because the landlord would find an irrelevant reason to evict us. Since before birth, I had fight emotionally, physically and mentally to stay alive. Through all the pain, my sisters and I had a strong mother that went on her knees every nightto pray that God would protect us and always allow my sisters and I to forgive those who hurt us. I have learnt to use my negative situations and extract the positives from it, as one should always use every negative situation as an opportunity for growth.

Deep inside of my soul I know that I have gifts and abilities that someone needs, to fulfil their assignment or dream. Thus, I know that if I equip myself with a decent education, it would be possible to do so with much more influence. However, my family and I are not strong enough to support my vision financially. Thus, as my mother is a pensioner, her small contribution towards my fees every month makes a minor difference to the reduction of my balance. However, it barely meets the required monthly payments and often worries me. Therefore, financial assistance would alleviate that worry and would be highly appreciated.

Young people and children are dying on our streets every day and it’s almost become normalized. Volunteering in prisons, schools and rehabilitation centres for two years, prior to the commencement of university, has opened my eyes to many horrific sights and experiences. Thus, the field of Psychology is the educational tool that would equip me to understand, redirect and guide these young and talented individuals who have so much unseen potential.

      If you had the opportunity, how will you change the world?

As a university student, I am afforded the opportunity to change the world already. And by volunteering, I am utilising the educational tools that I am equipped with at university, to facilitate positive thinking patterns and behaviours of youth that are imprisoned. I aspire to create a non-profit organisation that focuses on the mental health and needs of both male and female youth. I am going to be one of the many positive tools that will help rebuild the broken and find the lost. I am going to be the human bridge that will link broken families and guide the victory to restoration.