Tony Maake, is the man behind Tony’s Houz (TH) Children’s Foundation, a local NGO and photography business Tony’s Lenz. His interest in telling the stories of his youth and South African society has made him a successful businessman, an upcoming microbiologist and an international award-winning photographer. He sat down with MatieMedia to discuss the many ventures he has undertaken.
Tony Maake describes himself in one word: storyteller. From a young age, he knew that he wanted to be a storyteller and show people the world through his eyes. As an alumnus of Stellenbosch University (SU), he graduated with a BSc in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in 2018, and is passionate about honouring his background and uplifting other communities through service.
Tony Maake describes himself in one word: storyteller. From a young age, he knew that he wanted to be a storyteller and show people the world through his eyes. As an alumnus of Stellenbosch University (SU), he graduated with a BSc in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in 2018, and is passionate about honouring his background and uplifting other communities through service.
He credits various influences as his inspiration: the youth centre he worked at in Johannesburg from a young age, his mother and education.
He hopes that his initiatives will inspire people to dream as big as he did. With his never-say-die attitude, he leaves a mark wherever he goes and is constantly looking for ways to be an agent of change.
Big small dreams
Toni was born and raised in Katlehong, a township east of Johannesburg, Gauteng. He attributes his early drive to be successful to being raised by parents who always emphasised the importance of education to him from a young age. He was raised to be curious and to want the best out of life, for himself and his peers.
He attributes his early interest in photography to when he began studying at SU. Initially, Tony was enrolled for a BSc Human Life Sciences degree. During his second year, his leadership instinct started showing and he was elected as a class representative for his microbiology class. He was also on the Natural Sciences Student Committee.
Through the university, he got multiple opportunities to travel and after a semester as an exchange student abroad, he realised that Human Life Sciences was not the path he had wanted to pursue. He wanted to focus on microbiology instead. “After going to Tübingen University in Germany, I became interested in microbiology and looking at small things through all these lenses,” he said.
The change to microbiology and continuously working with different equipment ultimately inspired him to also look at slightly different lenses: He started pursuing photography. He raised money and bought a simple camera on Gumtree and began taking pictures casually. “I began practising taking different kinds of pictures. Like the trees on Victoria Street and other people doing what people do,” he said. Maake decided to enroll in the Stellenbosch Photography Society where he improved his photography skill and was named photographer of the year in 2016.
Tony’s Houz, Tony’s Lenz
During his studies at SU, Tony realised the need for youth and community development, especially in Kayamandi. He wanted to create a sustainable project that would help communities, and identified iKhaya Primary School in Kayamandi as the home for his initiative.
“At this point, many student organisations had been visiting the school without leaving it transformed or with something to sustain it,” he said. This resulted in the conceptualisation of Tony’s Houz (TH) Children’s Foundation in 2015, with the assistance of his good friend, Seth Motswaledi. The formation of the foundation, now known as Empower iKhaya, was to give learners at iKhaya Primary the educational support and resources they needed to succeed.
“I also wanted to create an organisation where students who wanted to start helping out in the community, would come to share their knowledge,” said Maake. While he was studying, Stellenbosch was going through a process of transformation. “It was not easy to live and study in Stellenbosch. You always had to go the extra mile to prove yourself,” said Maake.
Maake struggled with financial resources and would often use money from his pocket towards the foundation. To secure financial stability for the foundation, he registered TH Children’s Foundation with SU’s Societies Council. This helped the foundation to secure access to funding. It also meant that more student volunteers signed up. Today, the foundation runs after-school tutoring programmes, green and sustainability initiatives and arts and culture activities and is kept running by student volunteers. He also incorporated Tony’s Lenz into the foundation and began teaching photography classes in Johannesburg to young, aspiring photographers in his community.
His work in photography took him around the world: Italy, Sweden, Germany, the United States and Turkey. “I even met Denzel Washington,” he mentions. In 2015, under Tony’s Lenz, he entered his photography into the Swedish International Innovations competition under the category: South African Interpretation and was placed as a finalist. The following year, he won the Best Photographer award at the 2016 Honesty Oscars. His work was praised for “fighting corruption and [bringing] change to communities through the power of photography” in the competition. Recently, he has been exhibiting his work and has been invited as a guest speaker to various art galleries in Johannesburg. “When I host events, I always ask people to bring sanitary pads or old clothes and stationary they do not use instead of charging an entrance fee,” he said.
What’s next for Tony Mac?
According to Maake, one of his personal short-term goals is to go back to school to study medicine. “It was one of the things I wanted to do, but I chose a BSc instead. It is never too late to pursue education,” he said. Tony currently has been working as a microbiologist for a multinational pharmaceutical corporation.
However, for now, his biggest goal is to open his photography school “Empower Lenses” in his community. “I want it to have all the best equipment possible to teach the youth valuable photography,” said Maake.