The Komaticare centre has now been closed for most of 2020. This has caused great hardship for the 70 children who were attending each day, enabling them to get two good meals. Unfortunately, with so many children, social distancing and the cost of PPE equipment has made it impossible to re-open the centre. Up to the present time we and another charity have been providing money to buy basic food such as Maize meal to be distributed in the community.
The Committee that operates the Care Centre has therefor decided to keep the centre closed for the rest of 2020 and review the situation in the New Year.
We have proposed that the kitchen be kept open to provide take away food for the children each day and the Esperado Charity will provide the funds for the food and to pay the cooks wages.
Due to the Corona 19 virus pandemic. The school has now been closed for four months. It is a tragedy for the pupils and at present; we do not know when the government will allow the school to open again. The Esperado charity is sending money to purchase food for distribution to families in the Orlando community that do not have access to government support.
Our School in a container has completed it’s first year and we are so proud of the people who have made it happen. They are Marietjie (principal) Jan (Marietjie’s husband) our wonderful maintenance manager and our teachers Nompomoleta and Amanda. Between them they have made our first year a tremendous success: we are so very grateful for all their hard work. Our school now has a logo and uniform shirts proudly displaying it. The children have worked so hard and written their first year exams. On the 17th December the Komati-care center (which we also support) held their Christmas party and our children were included. It was a very happy and moving morning. We must reiterate that all the children in this school are refugees and have never received formal education. The oldest is ten years old and has never been to school. We are determined to give these children the opportunity to learn.
the class of 2019, Each of our pupils received a medal for completing their 1st year.
On Sunday the 28th of July we held our annual Bangers, Burgers and Boules fun day. This was the seventh year that we have held this popular event.
This year weather was kind and over 80 people took part in a fun competition. Quite a lot lot of them were experienced Boule players but we also had a lot of people who had very little experience of the game of Petanque.
The competition started at midday with one match, we then had the Bangers and burgers lunch followed by another two games. free drinks were served through out the day and doughnuts were enjoyed before Prizes were given for the best man the best lady and the best beginner. the day finished with a super raffle. It was a great day out and raised over £1600.00 for our charity. Thanks to all the wonderful people who contributed to the success of the day. Our thanks also go to the Jersey Petanque club for the use of their wonderful facilities.
Pictured outside the classroom, our learners who without the help of the wonderful people who support us would never have the opportunity of an education. We need to expand the idea of container classrooms but to do that we will need more money.
The children all look very well turned out and for that we are lucky that Orlando is near to a holiday town ship, the folk who live there are generous in their donations of clothes. these kids are so enthusiastic to learn and take pride in their appearance. just look at the happy smiling faces. Behind the kids are Marietjie the driving force behind the project and Nompomoleta our teacher.
Our container school now has a name, it is the “Orlando English Primary School”
The children have just been on holiday but are now back for the second term and there are now nineteen children from six to nine years old all as keen as mustard to learn.
We are so grateful and impressed with all the work Marietjie has done in getting the project off the ground. She is a woman with a lot of love for her fellow humans and of course we must mention Jan her husband for all he has and is doing in the background. We are so looking forward to our next visit to witness this little revolution in Orlando.
Marietjie has bbeen busy making seat bagsSome of our learners.A recent list of some of our learners
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.
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.
These are the first of our students Thesperado charity provided each with a new school bag.
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.
