Month: June 2019

Exciting things have been happening at the Komati-Care Centre in South Africa with the support of the Esperado Charity.

The township of Orlando in Komatipoort, where the Care-centre pre-school is located, is an area of severe poverty. The last time Janet and I were there was in November 2018. the care center takes children from 3 to 6 years of age:at age 6 they enter the SA school system. Fifteen children were leaving the Pre-School to go to a local government school. But there were five children left who didn’t have citizen ship documents, i.e. mainly, birth certificates even though they were born in SA. These children were not allowed to go to school: they would be put back onto the streets with no educational future. How can this be condoned. If you don’t educate children how are they able to progress in life. No matter how bright they may be, they will have only the prospect of the most menial work, if any is available, or as is often the case, turn to crime

We had in the past wondered if we could build a small school but discounted the idea as too big an enterprise for our small charity.

At first we discussed sending the five children that we knew of to a local private English school. After investigating this would turn out to be very expensive and only five children would benefit.

Marietjie Poulton a retired head teacher with many years experience who is involved in organising the Komati-care pre school told us that she had found a company that converted shipping containers into offices and wondered if we put one in the grounds of the Komati-care centre and then employed a teacher we could educate more children.

We looked into and decided that we could afford a container. Jan and Marietjie ordered one to be converted to the needs of a classroom and It was delivered in early March 2019. Marietjie then found a teacher who could teach a basic but full curriculum in English. Our teachers name is Nompomoleta and she will be teaching five days a week.

Getting this project off the ground hasn’t been cheap. The main expense is the teacher, about £8000 a year. But, the results are already fantastic. We now have 20 children in our little school who are desperately keen to learn.

One little girl Stood outside the school for three days until Marietjie invited her in. the girls name is imaculada, she is ten years old and has never been in a school in her life. She is now one of our learners and is loving every minute of it.

Here in Jersey our children take education for granted they have beautiful schools and the most modern equipment. In Africa it is not a given.

Janet and I are not back in South Africa until September when we be able catch up on all the details of how we move forward and develop this project.

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2019 will be a very exciting at the Komaticare center. Once again we will be sending money to top up the SPAR Supermarket card, this will help to feed the children over the coming year.

At the end of 2018 , 15 children will be leaving the care center to join the State education system. but six of this years leavers do not have any documentation so they will not be able to go to school and will be turned out onto the street it is dreadfully sad and happens every year. It is also very short sighted . Our original plan was to pay for five of them to go to a local private English school which was going to be very expensive and would be limited to a very few kids. Instead we are going to invest in a new classroom and a qualified teacher to teach a full curriculum in English.

The classroom will be a shipping container professional converted by a specialist company. It will placed in the grounds of the Komaticare center and will soon be able to accommodate sixteen children. The project is being organised by Marietjie Poulson a retired head teacher with many years of experience. Marietjie has been working with the Care center on a voluntary basis for quite a number of years, her husband Jan, a retired farmer acts as the Care center’s handyman and will look after the installation of the new classroom.

2018 has been a busy year. Sophia and her family at the Haven are still getting our support, this year it has been in the form of money to enable her to buy agricultural supplies for the Moringa project. Sophia has been offered the use of a plant nursery in Near bye Barberton. The owner who was retiring offered it Sophia for free if she would keep it going.She has been hard at work stocking it with trees and plants grown at the Haven.

At the Komaticare centre we provided really strong and durable swings for the children . The seats have been made from car tires and are nice and safe.

Up til this year the cooks at the care center have had to carry 60 portions of plated food twice a day to the classrooms along a rickety and dangerous pathway. So, we contracted a local builder to make a new concrete pathway and then got the engineer who made the swings to make a strong trolley to carry the plates.

We are now helping to fund the feeding program for the Children at the Komaticare Pre-School. To enable this to happen we had a meeting with the manager of the local Spar supermarket. Spar has issued the school with a card that we can load with money. The school can then use it to buy from the supermarket.The manager has agreed that they would stock the kind of staples that the school needs and supply them at a good discount. Only two people have clearance to use the card and they will have to confirm their identity at the checkout. The amount that we have provided, £2000.00 will help to feed 60 children for over a year.

At the haven, Sophia has been growing plants in their nursery for a few years now, then at the end of last she began a new project growing Moringa trees. The Moringa tree is also known as the Miracle tree because it offers a plethora of health benefits . Fast and easy to grow in the right climate: tropical and sub-tropical. Moringa is loaded with nutrients and many of the plants parts are edible and includes the leaves, bark, oil, and gum. If enough trees can be grown they will be able to sell the product to processing companies for additional income. To make the project sustainable they need to grow at least 1000 trees and on our last visit they were well on their to achieving that target. this will be a tremendous achievement.

Before Christmas we provided money to enable the purchase polythene growing pots, compost and tools plus the purchase of a new electric cooker as the old one is broken and beyond repair. There would still have been some money left to buy some Christmas goodies for the family.