Mandisa Mtolo is a well accomplished educator from deep in the rural areas of Eastern Cape province in South Africa. She comes from a small, impoverished village called Matatiele. Matatiele falls under the Alfred Nzo district which is the poorest district in the province of Eastern Cape with high level of poverty and unemployment.

Mandisa's father and mother divorced in 1991, her mother left them at home with their father. Her father was working and left them with their 12-year-old cousin. Life was very difficult because her cousin had to fetch firewood for them to cook food, Mandisa and her little sister were left alone to try and eat something all day, while she was seven years old, her little sister was five years old. They were helped by a neighbour who was their father's uncle who saw that the children would die in the house they were living in, so they were able to find accommodation, clothing, food and education. Their Dad would come back every two weeks to see them. They grew up and succeeded in school because they were as smart as their father. Life started again to be very difficult when they passed matric. Those hardships however did not hamper her ambitions to become a contributor in the well-being of society and improving the future of other kids in her area. Her upbringing saw her go through various challenges which include trouble accessing other basic needs. Mandisa has always been success driven, she once found 20 rand on the ground and used that money to buy flour from which she made fatcakes to sell at school. At university, she funded her own tuition fees by working from one job to another, she performed very good in her studies and was rewarded with a bursary which helped to propel her even further. She studied at the Durban University of Technology doing Commercial Educator course. In 2012 she graduated with an unprecedented five major subjects instead of the usual three.