WESTBURY HAS TALENT

Nazeer Herzig says that Westbury has a lot of talented people that never get an opportunity. He believes this might be his.

When word was spreading around the community of Westbury about the Motheo Academy and the opportunity it would be giving to 20 young people who were interested in construction, 28-year-old Nazeer immediately took interest. “I have always been vaguely interested in construction but I worked on other things over the years. The problem was always that they didn’t offer any room for growth. I decided to apply just in case this meant some level of growth,” he recalls. Brick laying and plastering quickly became the areas that were most interesting to Nazeer. The encouragement made him blossom. “Having somebody care enough to invest in me made me want to perform well. Even when I had bad days and moments when I wanted to quit, knowing that the people at Motheo had made this effort to invest in my life made me keep going.” Nazeer says he didn’t always have the support he wanted from friends and family but the support at the academy was constant. “Friends don’t always understand your hopes for your life. So there were times when my friends were questioning my decision but I had to distance myself a bit so that I could focus. My family thought that I would give up along the way. I know why they thought that so I worked on proving them wrong so that they could be proud of me.” With the learnership close to the end, Nazeer has hopes of working in the industry and working his way up the ranks. “I would like to start my business one day but for now, I want to work hard and build a life that I can be proud of. I want people to know that they can be from Westbury and be successful and I hope my story will be one of those examples. “