Cindy loves the buzz of Cape Town

Cindy April

Damelin Cape Town college campus academic librarian, Cindy April, enjoys working with the youth.

Ms April has been working at the college since 2016 and loves every moment of it.

“In between my interactions with the kids, we have mini conversations and I get to know them,” she said.

Her responsibilities include organising books, publications and documents for convenient access, helping students with their work by recommending relevant textbooks and keeping a record of books.

From time to time Ms April hosts classes where she teaches first-year students about preventing plagiarism.

Her favourite part of the job is cataloguing, which involves arranging material so that it is easy to find.

Ms April, who lives in Khayelitsha, was born and raised in the outskirts of KwaBhaca, in the Eastern Cape, with her three other siblings. She said they were raised by their single mother as their father died when she was just 2 years old.

She did not let falling pregnant as a teenager hold her back and was determined to improve her education.

She got accepted to study at the University of the Western Cape and obtained a Diploma in Library and Information Science.

Ms April considers herself to be a curious person and said she chose this field of study because she wanted to see what it involved.

There weren’t many libraries where she came from but the more she learnt about them the more she fell in love with the idea of working in one.

After graduating in 2000, it was time for her to face the real world and look for a job.

“Being a teen mom was challenging, but it was nothing compared to looking for a job after university,” she said.

She worked part time at the Central library and the National Library of South Africa, to gain more experience. She has also worked at the Iziko South African National Gallery as an arts librarian and joined Damelin Mowbray in 2013. Ms April left Damelin in 2014 to try to start a business but that did not go well so she rejoined Damelin in 2016.

She said she loves the buzz of Cape Town. “I love the vibe, the wide variety of food you get here, the different ethnic groups given that I come from a Xhosa-dominated area, not to forget people from different nations.”