Big help for needy children

Thanks to the care of two Greenspark residents, children without IDs can also get an education.

Behind its pink and grey walls, a house on Kingfisher Street named Khayalami offers much-needed help to struggling youngsters.

According to the owner and long-time resident, Mr Glen Fourie, the house was initially supposed to be a double-storey, but the original owner did not finish the building. Fourie, who lives across the street, realised the house would make an ideal soup kitchen to feed the many struggling children in the town as there is no such functional facility.

Although the soup kitchen fed many youngsters, the facility increased its offering when a former teacher’s assistant at Greenspark Primary School, Mr Tumelo Mpalweni, started giving classes there in February.

Mpalweni hails from the Northern Cape and was formerly a corporal in the SANDF, but says he soon realised it was not his real calling.

“I gave other learners classes while our teachers were striking when I was still at school myself and have always loved it,” he says.

Mpalweni saw an opportunity to use his skills when he noticed that several children in Geenspark could not go to school because they did not have birth certificates. These children are not foreigners, but, for some reason or another, their parents have neglected to get them legally registered.

Sometimes, even the parents do not have IDs despite being South African nationals.

“These are our leaders of tomorrow, and we cannot leave them without an education,” he says.

Mpalweni and another concerned resident, Ms Thandiwe Bontes, now teach the children to write, read and do basic mathematics. Mpalweni still gives extra classes to paying learners from other schools and uses this money to cross-subsidise his classes at Khayalami.

Meanwhile, Fourie and Mpalweni are trying to get the children registered so they can attend regular school and continue their education.

More than ten children are currently taught and fed at Khayalami. As some of them only have one set of clothes and are absent when they are washed, donations of children’s clothes, stationery and food make an enormous difference in the project.

Anyone willing to help should contact Fourie at 073 533 2241 or Mpalweni at 079 613 2360.