School principal Jackson Hadebe says he has about 60 orphans at his school. ‘Most of them are children whose parents died either of Aids-related diseases or just natural deaths, while others are children whose parents left to look for work in Johannesburg and haven’t returned since,” he says.
Hadebe says some of these orphans have no adults caring for them – they are forced to head families themselves. ‘They don’t have school uniforms, can’t afford to pay school fees and even more sadly, they came to school on empty stomachs,” he says.
Hadebe decided to start a project to enable these children to support themselves. ‘I wanted to provide a long-term solution to their problem – something that will help them even beyond Umbonambi – so I thought of empowering them with vital business skills.”
The school took six orphans to a beading course. Having completed their training, each of the six learners was required to train five other orphans. Their work is sent to a friend in the United States – a teacher who was recently at the school on a programme that aims to expose US teachers to the South African education experience – to sell. Revenue made from selling the beadwork is used to buy material and the profit is shared among orphans according to the amount of work done.
Other projects started by Hadebe are the school tuckshop and a vegetable garden. Orphaned learners grow vegetables and sell them; they also work in the tuckshop during lunchtime and also share those profits.
Hadebe says the orphans rotate the running of the tuckshop, vegetable garden and beading. ‘They take turns – a group works for a week and then takes a break for a week. Many children prefer not to take breaks, though. But we give them time to eat, so they have their lunch before they start working and those who want to play are allowed to,” he says.
Hadebe wants to create a period during school hours for the orphans to work without sacrificing their lunch hour. ‘Like all children, they should be able to play during their break time,” he says.
He insists that the orphans must grow vegetable gardens at home as well as at school. ‘Every day I select one learner at assembly to go home with an orphan and check if there’s a garden. I do this so that I don’t have learners complaining that they didn’t come to school because there was no food at home,” he says.
The school recently received a R10 000 donation from Old Mutual towards these projects and 300 raincoats from North Safety Products, which will be sold to the community. Money made from selling the coats will be invested in the projects.