New school, old values

A new, no-fees school was officially launched in Nkobongo last week by the KZN department of education (DoE), catering for the needs of the area’s children.

Dinuphozo Primary School has a short but sweet history as Nkobongo’s front line educator of the community’s children, with a challenging set of obstacles slowly conquered to establish the settlement’s first resident school.

The school’s roots begin in January 2008, when the Nkobongo Community Hall was used to teach 352 children of different ages, which principal Prudence Phindi Vilakazi said was extremely difficult.

“We had many challenges operating at the community hall as we were forced to teach children of different ages and abilities in just one teaching space,” said Vilakazi, who said that although the DoE supplied the school with three mobile classrooms in July 2008 to increase teaching space, it was still not enough.

The department then provided two more additional mobile classrooms, which Dinuphozo Primary operated out of until the DoE granted the school R22m for an overdue upgrade of their teaching facilities.

In March 2013, building began on the project, which set out to construct a face brick school with all the facilities needed by the school, which is now the learning centre for 1303 children with scores of adults utilising the adult learning courses conducted on the new school grounds.

“This school came as a blessing to the community as there were incidents of our pupils being molested as they walked long distances to and from school back in 2008 and 2009,” said Vilakazi, who also highlighted the high number of cases of child neglect she witnessed coming out of the community.

“We worked closely with the Community Policing Forum (CPF), the police, the department of justice (DoJ) and social workers to catch the suspects, which led to the sentencing of three men to terms of 10, 15 and 25 years.”

According to Vilakazi, most of the pupils enrolled at Dinuphozo are orphans and that many are HIV positive, which some inherited from their parents and others contracted from abusers.

“Here at the school, we provide these children with their anti-retrovirals (ARVs) and porridge every morning and also assist in getting undiagnosed children and their parents treatment if necessary,” said Vilakazi, who proudly mentioned the school’s lifeline nutrition programme.

Financed entirely by the DoE, the nutrition programme feeds every single one of Dinuphozo’s 1303 children every day at 10am with a hearty breakfast.

“Almost all of these children are dependent on this programme, and many hate missing school because it is one of the few daily meals they receive.”

The R22m provided by the government was used to build the entire school infrastructure, including a series of buildings totalling 24 classrooms from grades R to seven, an early child development centre for children of five years of age, a science lab and a library.

“Sadly, burglary has been a problem for us, with our computers, intercoms and all electronics stolen over two incidents in 2013, so we are still looking for a sponsor to step up security at the school and replace the lost equipment,” said Vilakazi, who recognises the importance of computer literacy in today’s world.

The fledgling school is not unaccomplished in the fields of sport and art, however, as their traditional dance team are ranked number one in Ward 11, the Ilembe District and the KZN province, while former pupil Liso Nyali is an accomplished marathon runner, even at his young age of 16.

Dinuphozo Primary also celebrates all cultures present in the school – with a ‘Cultural Activities Day’ held every year to host a dance off between Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi dance styles, which even pull the parents into participation.

“I appreciate what the DoE has done for our school. I love our children and I am so proud of the school community we have been given and work so hard to maintain,” said Vilakazi, who hopes more people will visit their school and meet their many talented pupils.