In March 2007, St
Andrew's Uniting Presbyterian Church in Rynfield, together with St Mark's
Uniting Presbyterian Church in Daveyton and SKF in Boksburg, formed a Section
21 company, Legae Community Childcare Centre in Daveyton, to serve the needs of orphans and
vulnerable children; especially those affected and/or infected by HIV/ AIDS. Legae
is the Sotho word for “home”.
SKF is a Swedish bearing
manufacturing company, with its South African head office in Boksburg and they
provide most of the funding for the outreach project. The role of St Andrew’s
Church is to manage the project, while St Mark’s Church owns the premises from
which the project is run. St Mark’s involvement in the local community provided
us with an entry into the area and “buy-in” from the community.
We operate a pre-school and day care centre for up to 50 children between
the ages of 3 & 6 and an Aftercare facility for 26 primary school children.
Attendance at Legae is free of charge and the Centre is mainly staffed by people from the
surrounding community, who were trained for the purpose; thus helping people to
accept responsibility for and acting upon the needs in their society.
Children receive 2 meals a day, as well as snacks and the occasional
food parcel to take home.
We also
provide the children with basic medical services (in co-operation with a local
doctor), HIV education and resilience building. Several staff members have been
trained in play therapy and child counseling.
The pre-school
syllabus has a Christian slant, but we welcome children from all faiths. Our
syllabus is in line with that of all pre-schools aimed at preparing children
for primary school and we also follow the proper Grade R curriculum.
Children
attending the Aftercare section receive lunch and help with their homework. The
programme also includes regular art lessons by teachers and volunteers, music
lessons (by a musician from the community) and a computer skills programme.
At the
onset of winter, we provide the neediest pupils with warm clothes and we hand
out blankets to residents of the nearby informal settlements. Parents
and caregivers of our pupils take ownership of the project by way of practical
assistance such as washing windows, polishing floors and laundering curtains
and linen. This year, two of them have
taken responsibility for our own little vegetable garden and we hope to soon be
able to harvest beetroot and carrots.
During the July school holidays,
we run a Holiday Programme with various activities and outings with the aim of
keeping the children constructively busy and off the streets. We usually have
close to 100 children attending our Holiday Club.
Some of the outreach’s highlights over the years
include the following:
1. Thandi M*, one of our first
pupils, had cerebral palsy and was tongue-tied (her tongue was too tightly
attached to the floor of her mouth, preventing her from learning to speak).
Legae, with the assistance from an SKF director from the USA, arranged for her
to have an operation to have her tongue loosened. Later we managed to have her
enrolled as a boarder at Hembelihle LSEN school, for children with
disabilities. The last time we had contact with her family, Khanyi was making
good progress and was able to communicate by way of sign language.
2. Rex N was a
severely traumatised boy, who displayed
anti-social behaviour and caused
disruptions in class. He
had no birth certificate, but was estimated to be about 5 years old. He
had
been beaten with a sjambok, throttled, stuffed in a rubbish bin together with a
dog for hours on end and he was generally neglected and abused. We liaised with
the Benoni Child Welfare and Rex was
been placed in the care of the
elderly woman who found
him in this condition. She and her family take good care of him. Rex was
a feral child in many ways and needed
of a lot of love. He also needed
speech therapy and psychological treatment.
We arranged for an assessment through the Department of Education and Prince
was placed in an appropriate pre-school facility for a year. He now attends a
normal school, is proving to be very bright and still attends Legae’s Aftercare
Centre.
3. Tshepo S comes from a very needy
home and has been with Legae’s Aftercare programme since the beginning. He is a
pleasant, well behaved boy, but he struggles at school and at the age of 16, he
was still at primary school. We managed to place Tshepo in Olympia Park
Pre-vocational School in Springs, where he was admitted with a full bursary and
he will be trained for a suitable vocation. The school also has an excellent
job placement programme, which greatly increases his chances of finding a job
after school. His taxi fare is covered by a donor. Since enrolling at the
school Tshepo’s marks have almost doubled and his teachers say that he shows
leadership abilities.
4. Khanyi (12) and Thabo (9) are a
brother and sister who attend our Aftercare. Their father is deceased and both
the children and their mother are HIV+. No one in the household has work. Via
Legae, St Francis clinic placed the children on ARV’s. However, their mother
did not bring the children to the clinic regularly, nor did she give them their
medication regularly. Several meetings were held with the children’s mother and
grandmother; to educate and encourage them to comply with the medication
regimen, but this was to no avail.
Thabo regularly
missed school due to illness and Khanyi showed signs of becoming ARV-resistant.
She contracted TB and was in and out of hospital with various infections.
Eventually she weighed only 16kg. During this period, the mother had another
baby and she was often away from home.
After
various attempts to involve the authorities, Legae made a formal report to the
local clinic and the Benoni Child Welfare Society. The latter removed the older
children from the mother’s care and placed them in a hospice in Germiston,
where they stayed for several weeks Once they had recovered, they were returned
to their home. The court has made an order that they have to attend Legae every
weekday to ensure that they are well and looked after. Both children are
looking healthy and happy these days.
5. Legae has a wider impact on the
community with the pre-school teacher training that is offered at
minimal cost on the premises on Saturday mornings. Over the past 4 years her
students numbers have continued to increase as nursery schools in the area send
their staff for training and unemployed women enroll in order to equip themselves
better for employment. Last year more than 70 students attended the 2 courses
(Basic and Advanced) and indications are that this will go from strength to
strength.
At Legae we are
passionate about making a difference to the lives of disadvantaged children by
unlocking their potential; thereby paving the way for a generation that can
contribute to society.
*Not their real names.
