FROM living on the streets to being a company founder, Tendai Sean Joe’s story is a classic case of rags-to-riches.
REPORT BY JENNIFER DUBE The 29-year-old is the founder of Whenpages.com, a free social events and venue listing service.
The service also allows venue owners a free business listing service.
“Users can easily discover and share events on web or via mobile platforms,” Joe explained. “We would like to make Whenpages.com one of the leading locations and time-based service in Asia, South America and Africa.”
Joe, who works in South Africa, hopes to make money from advertisements on the site.
The website — which is still in the developmental stage — is being set up with the next Africa Cup of Nations and Fifa World Cup to be held in South Africa and Brazil respectively, as the major targets. Joe intends to provide a streamlined service for the hospitality and entertainment industry, taking advantage of the booming smartphone business.
He is also a social media consultant who has worked with companies including Telkom, SAB Miller, Vodacom and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Despite all these information technology ventures, Joe did not undergo any formal training in the field.
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“I taught myself from the basics,” he said. “I also do corporate talks and motivational talks whenever I am booked or invited, my most recent engagements having been at the University of Cape Town and University of Johannesburg.”
Having lived on the streets at the age of 10, Joe’s exploits are a feat.
His father was a general worker at GMB and his mother was unemployed.
Joe dropped out of school in Grade 5 during the 1992 drought which forced him and one of his nine siblings onto the streets where they scrounged for food in bins and other dirty places in Chegutu.
“When I was in the streets, there were no drugs,” said Joe. “Well, glue was there but it was a choice to use it and I did not.
“In our time, we did not have social workers and psychologists, but these days there are many NGOs and interventions. However, there are still many challenges that need to be addressed.”
He was to later leave the streets after being sexually molested by an older girl.
Joe is also into charity work
Joe co-owns a charity organisation, Trail of Hope Foundation, which assists children living on the streets throughout Africa.
Joe’s family relocated to Mudzi where he enrolled at a school and struggled through Grade 7 as his parents could not afford the fees and as food was still scarce in the family. But he passed with five units.
A sympathetic couple financed his secondary education where he passed with 6As and 3Bs. He claims his dream of getting a scholarship to proceed to A’ Level was shattered after the headmaster refused to write him a recommendation letter.
“Although I had little support from my brother, who was now working, my situation took a downward turn like it was back in the 90s,” Joe said. “There were days when I would eat once in two days. I wrote my A’ Level final exams without a calculator and I failed.”
He was to later have a brief stint as a temporary teacher in Mudzi before abandoning that to live with his brother in Chipinge for two years.
He left for South Africa in 2005 where he worked in the construction industry and later did other odd jobs, including collecting rubbish and gardening.
