KwaDukuza mother and daughter duo impact young lives

This woman’s month we bring into focus a KwaDukuza mother-daughter team who, by tapping into their own passion and empathy have made a real difference in their community, one child at a time.

For Zanele Mhlongo, the opportunity to help the youth in her community presented itself in 2011 when she became the first parent at her daughter’s school, Nyakana Combined Primary, to volunteer to assist with the reading challenges many of the pupils were facing.

The MRP Foundation, the NGO arm of the Mr Price Group, had recently launched their holistic education programme at Nyakana, one of the first of 5 MRP Foundation supported schools in the region.

The supported school programme focuses on 4 key areas – parent and community involvement, school management and leadership and pupil and teacher development.

While volunteering she witnessed the scope of work the MRF Foundation was doing and her interest was piqued.

Less than a year later, the ex-teacher who had been a stay-at-home for a number of years started assisting the creative arts teachers, who were part of the MRP Foundation schools programme with music, dance, drama and art.

“I was really passionate about all the things they were teaching so I volunteered on Saturdays to help the pupils, especially with dance.” Her passion and energy were infectious and did not go unnoticed.

Almost a year into her volunteer work, Creative Madness, the implementation partners for the creative arts component of the MRP schools programme offered her a position as a creative arts facilitator, working in all 5 of its schools in KwaDukuza (Aldinville Senior Primary School, Kearsney Primary School, Nyakana Combined Primary School, Zilungisele Primary School and St Christophers Primary School).

It was through her position that Zanele (57) realised that some teachers found it challenging to teach creative arts.

“Teachers did not know how to go about helping pupils perform. I was there to help them, so that pupils could improve on their results and gain confidence.” Inspired by her mother, Zanele’s daughter Nomzamo chose to study teaching.

“Seeing my mother work with teachers, the community and the youth was amazing. I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to be someone who would change someone’s life,” said Nomzano.

The vibrant 20-year-old said the programme played a large part in developing her self-confidence.

“At school, my happiest place was when I was put in a position where I could express myself through drawing, writing, dancing or performing. The programme made us realise the things we could do and we ended up doing really well in our other school subjects.”

The belief that mothers should teach their daughters the importance of dreaming and working hard has always resonated strongly with Zanele and her daughter is testament to her strong belief that women’s empowerment begins at home. “Women who are successful should uplift other women and motivate them to fight for what they believe in,” said Zanele.

The mother-daughter duo have been also working on a youth upliftment project in their private capacity.

Launched at the beginning of this year Sbani Sethu (our light) Youth Club, with the support of Creative Madness, offers moral support to youth, helps pupils with their homework and teaches them art, dance and drama.

“In 2019 we were asked to assist a few children with their homework. We started with 6 children, some who were living with their grandparent, and who had learning difficulties. At the end of the year they were able to read and write and even managed to pass their grade. We discovered that many children live alone and they do not have any adult figures who can help them with their homework. Some children have parents but are always absent because they are working so that is why they do not perform well at school,” said Nomzamo.

She said more children have joined and seeing the results, more people have stepped forward to volunteer.

“Ten years from now we would love to see this organisation spreading to other rural areas, producing good results,” said Nomzamo.

The MRP Foundation Schools Programme is active in 98 primary schools in low-income areas across the country.

Head of communications for the MRP Foundation, Pierre Toastee said at the heart of the MRP Foundation lies the youth of South Africa.

“The vision behind the schools programme is to break the cycle of poverty and inequality in South Africa through its education and skills development programmes.”