Maditlhare Koena born in Eastern at a village called Palmietfontein
She did her primary grades at Storomo Jun Sec Scool. When she completed primary she went to Tlokweng Senior Secondary School. She matriculated in 1998
She was raised by a single mother who was working as a domestic worker in Free State.
Because of this reason and other like staying with a big struggling family, she couldn’t further her studies to tertiary level.
She was forced to go for job hunting. Which resulted to her leaving home Eastern Cape to Western Cape to look for green pastures.
In the year 2000 she was trained as a security guard but even after trained there were no opportunities of work as in that field, during those days security guard was known to be the work of Males not females . The year 2002 she worked as a farm worker. 2004 she went to volunteer at SAPS ( South African Police Service) as a reservist.
2008 she worked for a Christian based organization called World Vision. It was an international organization. The organization was sponsoring the vulnerable household, orphans of HIV/AIDS and child headed household
She worked with the organization as a Community Development Facilitator for 10yrs.The sponsor were from China, Taiwan and Japan.
After the Haiti Tsoname l, the sponsors pulled out say they want to focus on their country. Which led to the phasing out of the office of World Vision in Paarl where she was working.
One of the skills that she left with from World Vision is sorting the waste from source and recycling. Her passion of being a Waste-pickers started there. When the office phased out she had to make a plan to continue feeding her family. 2019 she organized women who were working as individuals picking at the street. She started with four ladies, who interested in organising themselves. They met SAWPA through one of SAWPA members.
She joined SAWPA and got elected as a provincial coordinator for Western Cape
They all approached the local municipality under her leadership asking for the space to work and store their work late when the they go home, as they used to work and whatever they collected they had to selling they cannot make too big loads as the selling market is very far from where they are picking.
She had several meetings with municipality walking with her team.When they finally got the working space at municipality they started on the 3rd June 2019 to work from streets but work at the MRF( Marerial Recovery Facility). After serving as Provincial Coordinator for she was elected as National Coordinating Committee (NCC)for SAWPA
She was the NCC for SAWPA.
She was the one overseeing all activities of organization that are runned accordingly.
She has also been our communication officer for more than 2 years now.
She a Good communicator.
Play a vital role in EPR; INC-1 to INC-4.
Able to deliver under pressure above all.
Respect and understand the aims and vision of SAWPA
In the year 2024 August 06 she was elected as Deputy Chairperson of SAWPA
