From a Rocky Start to the Opportunity to Study in NYC: Zen's Story

Photo Credit: Screenshot from Video

Zen’s story might have begun in the toughest way as a child in extreme poverty, but today she stands towering over her circumstances as someone who has been accepted to study and pursue her dreams all the way in New York City!

Cape Town, South Africa (11 July 2024) — As is true for so many of the inspiring South Africans whose stories we get to tell, how you start pales in comparison to how you walk through the fire. This rings true for many of the triumph over adversity tales we’ve shared, and for one we’re about to—Zen’s.

Candice May’s daughter, Zanele might be dreaming about big city lights now thanks to the incredible news that she has been given an opportunity to further her education in New York City. But the beginning of her life before being adopted didn’t make much room for anything beyond staying strong and surviving.

As Candice tells Good Things Guy, Zen was born just outside of Umtata in the Eastern Cape into extreme poverty with “very little protection, safe keeping, food and the things most of us had in abundance growing up.”

Due to the circumstances of her biological family including her father passing away and her mother struggling with substance abuse, Zen’s aunt took action and decided to take her niece to Cape Town.

There, she lived in a children’s home run by her aunt. But due to the lack of resources the home had, the chips were still down for little Zen until a fateful day turned everything on its head forever as Zen and Candice crossed paths.

“I was introduced to the children’s home through my friend Tom while I was volunteering at a Non Profit Organisation and met Zen when she was 5 years old. We formed an instant bond and I adopted her a few years later when she was seven. She’s the absolute love of my life,” shares Candice.

The two became a fast family and for the first time in her life, Zen could put down her boxing gloves and become whoever she wanted to be without the weight of her previous circumstances. And that’s exactly what she’s done.

Today, she’s an ambitious young woman with her sights set on big things for her life. But, her fighting spirit still burns bright—a great weapon she has to go after her dreams. Dreams that just so happen to lie in the Dramatic Arts.

When she was still a child, Candice decided to enrol Zen in the Helen O’ Grady Drama Academy to help her with being introverted. It was there that her daughter fell in love with the stage, so much so that two of her strongest subjects taken to Matric (as Candice proudly shares) have been Dance and Drama.

But Zen took things to a bolder notch when she applied to study drama in New York City’s Manhattan at the New School. She got accepted and has been on a quest to raise the funds for her studies ever since. In fact, she even paid R10,000 herself, out of her own savings.

Candice and Zen are now hoping that there are others who will believe in Zen’s dream, and more who will believe in the power of never letting where you come from confine you.

You can find her crowdfunding campaign, here.