With help from big business, an Mpumalanga community has improved its educational lot, writes Rowan Callaghan
THE dank cell-like rooms of the former mine hostel still have rusty bunks stacked against the wall and the old coal stove still occupies centre stage on the cold cement floor. Listen carefully and you may just hear the voices of the mineworkers in the creaking of the tin roof, but now there are new sounds at Osizweni: children laugh — and learn — in rooms that must have heard little laughter
Big business, with major contributions from local communities, has brought the defunct Bracken Mine near Secunda in Mpumalanga back to life with the Osizweni Project. Sasol has spent close to R16-million over the last four years to equip and fund programmes at the “place where help is to be found”.
At first glance it looks like nothing much has changed at Osizweni, as the project has made use of existing mine structures. What has changed is the function of the old buildings. They now aid in the education of people — primary to adult education and training — from nearby areas like eMbalenhle, Evander, Kinross and Secunda. “The private sector can bring what they’re good at to education, which is making capital available, and the education department brings teachers,” says Osizweni director Johan Eloff.
Eloff, whose office is situated in the old mine administration buildings, recalls how the determination of the eMbalenhle residents made the project possible. It all started with the Osizweni Community Development Centre in temporary buildings at eMbalenhle in 1991. The project was a small one but it instilled in the residents a desire to improve their
The problem was the number of issues facing the community which needed serious attention. “The question was asked, OWhat are the needs of the community?’ There are many: housing, job creation and education,” Eloff says. The final choice was the present project, which has tried to alleviate a number of the community’s problems in one. In June1993 Osizweni was moved to the abandoned mine.
The building in which the director’s office lies is also home to the Osizweni administrative personnel, adult education classes, as well as language laboratories. In co-operation with Rand Afrikaans University, the centre will train teachers further. Adult education is also high on Osizweni’s agenda. “We are at a disadvantage if we have excellent pupils whose parents are unemployed,” Eloff
And employment is exactly what the outbuildings, which have been converted into skills training centres, have to offer. Here unemployed people are taught skills including needlework, woodwork, leatherwork and baking. Eloff says a large percentage manage to get work after doing the courses.
Away from the main buildings, one is confronted by the old heart of the mine. The desolate mine platform with its giant wheel looms menacingly, while alongside stands a massive old barn which sits silently, rusting in the afternooon sun. The old mine, with its image of age and decay, is soon forgotten, though, as the unmistakable sounds of children playing drifts through the air.
These sounds grow louder as one approaches the rows of dreary hostel structures in the furthest part of the mine. “The layout of the building lends itself to a school system: rows of bleak hostel rooms are being transformed into bright, cheerful classrooms, and refrigeration rooms in the old hostel canteen make for the useful storage of chemicals in the new science lab,” Eloff says.
At the moment Osizweni has 500 pupils. The goal is a school that will be the equivalent of four normal schools, from pre-primary to secondary levels. The planned capacity in four years’ time is three thousand pupils. But one problem remains: Osizweni is still a state school and as such it faces the same problems as other schools in the region, including a lack of teachers.