"It is better to light a candle than to curse darkness.” Public schooling in Grahamstown is broken. Just kilometers away from some of the most expensive and well-resourced schools in the country, are schools that are crumbling, teachers who are not coping and a system that is failing an entire generation of learners. In his inaugural speech in 2015, Rhodes Vice Chancellor, Dr Sizwe Mabizela, vowed to do something about it. Three years on, and no one could have predicted how much difference his remarkable education initiative would make.