‘BACK TO SCHOOL’ IN ZULULAND
After over six months of school closure due to COVID19, the children of South Africa were finally able to return to school this month and kickstart a return to both their education and school lunches. Read more about Wild Tomorrow Fund’s assistance for the youngest learners at two daycare centers in our community in our latest blog below.
Back to school at the Theleluwazi Creche in KwaZulu-Natal South Africa, built and sponsored by Wild Tomorrow Fund in partnership with the Africa Foundation.
With the infection rate of COVID-19 on the rise, the global pandemic has left massive devastation in its wake. But children still need an education. The longer they are out of the classrooms, the poorer the quality of their education will inevitably be. Of greatest concern in South Africa are the almost one million children below age six who have no other adult caregiver except a working parent. Thousands of these children may be left home alone if their employed caregiver is able to return to work to sustain the family. That’s why the re-opening of daycare centers is so important.
The school closures were not just a risk to children’s educational outcomes. Hunger increased immediately after the lockdown as many parents lost their income and children no longer received free daily school meals. While schools remained closed, our emergency hunger relief food parcels provided much needed hunger relief for the kids and their families.
So it is good news indeed for the children of the Mduku community that after what must have been a long 6 months for their parents, the government allowed schools to re-opened their doors, with the kids returning to class on February 15th.
To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, Wild Tomorrow Fund provided kiddies face masks (made by a local Durban-based company, Blu Betty) for all the kids at the two creches we support – Thelelulwazi Creche and Silethukukhanya Creche, as well as to Habanathi E.C. Orphanage. These face mask donations were made possible thanks to the funding raised from our Community Support program.
Not only did we deliver 200 face masks, but the four teachers at the Thelelulwazi Creche each received new chairs. During a visit to the creche back in August 2020, right before the South African government closed public schools, we noticed that the teachers did not have proper chairs and were using the same, brightly colored kiddie chairs that the children were using. We provided them with four “grown-human-sized” chairs so the compassionate women that teach these children have a comfortable place to sit each day. We also continue to provide monthly stipends to each teacher in support of their work.
With the start of a new school year we can now also re-start our monthly food support for daily school lunches. Between the two creches supported by Wild Tomorrow Fund, there are approximately 70 kids who attend the schools each and every day. We make sure that a daily healthy lunch can be provided - which involves a big trip to the supermarket by our staff! A month’s grocery list requested by each creche consists of: 10kg of chicken pieces, 25kg maize meal, 20kg samp, 40kg rice, 7kg onions, 7kg potatoes, 10 kg beans, 5L cooking oil., 2.5kg sugar, 24 cans of canned fish and 2kg of knorrox soup. That’s a lot of shopping carts!
It costs Wild Tomorrow Fund roughly $300 each month to provide this list of food to both the Thelelulwazi and Silethukukhanya Creches. If you would like to contribute to our community support program, or consider being a monthly donor for these kids, please click on the button below: Thank you, or as the kids say in isiZulu, Siyabonga!
REFERENCES
14 July 2020. COVID-19 school closures in South Africa and their impact on children by Servaas van der Berg, Professor of Economics and South African Research Chair in the Economics of Social Policy, Stellenbosch University. https://theconversation.com/covid-19-school-closures-in-south-africa-and-their-impact-on-children-141832