Wow!

On Tuesday this week I was totally blown away by one of our Family Facilitators. After completing our planning meeting for the year with the Siyabathanda Abantwana Facilitators, she produced a bag of good quality used clothes that she had been given and had brought them for the FF's to share amongst themselves to give to the children that they work with! Witnessing this small act made me smile, gave me hope and made me realise that little by little members of this community are realizing the vast resources and capabilities that they have and they are using them (unprompted) to affect the lives of those around them!!

Preparing toys for the Sikhulakahle Toy Library

On a cold and rainy 'summers' day the Family Facilitators came to LETCEE in order to prepare the toys for their very own Toy Library. The Family Facilitators are very excited that the Toy Library for their community is nearly ready and they cannot wait to use the many toys that they have helped to prepare!

Community participation and community ownership, how far have we come?

As an Organization I feel that we manage to get the consultation process right most of the time but then there are times like today when one realizes that in an effort to meet funding requirements and deadlines we make decisions without knowing whether it suits the community or not.

Today is a case in point. We needed to have a meeting with a group of our family facilitators and last week we phoned each of them to say that WE had decided the meeting date would be today, Tuesday 2nd November. Not one of them told us at the time that the day was not suitable, however this morning we were told that it is in fact pension day today and thus our meeting venue would probably be used for pension payouts and our family facilitators would either be collecting their own grants or assisting the families that they work with to do so.

Initially I was irritated and wondered why we weren't told sooner. However when thinking about it I was reminded that we didn't ask the facilitators if the day was suitable for them and we just informed them of the date. I know that if we had asked them they would have given us an alternative date there and then. I then began to think about how easy it is to slip back into old ways of thinking where we tell communities what and how they should do things.

Such a small incident has made me very aware that we constantly need to evaluate how and why we do the things that we do. We also need to reflect as to whether we are actually achieving what we set out to achieve. It always amazes me how reflecting on such a simple incident can bring much insight into our behaviour.

I just had to smile...

Yesterday I was totally inspired by one of our Family Facilitators, Prudence (Sho) Ngubane who ran an entire morning session with a group of children using resources she had made. These ranged from a skipping rope, a ball, shakers, counters and matching cards all made from waste such as plastic, cardboard, plastic bottles and paper. The only 'bought' item that she used were wax crayons.

The children were totally captivated by their morning activities and I was once again reminded that we don't necessarily need expensive toys when providing ECD to children. We need practitioners who are creative, innovative and have a passion to see children reach their full potential.

Taking Initiative

This is our caterer Mamsy Dlamini.

Today she proudly came to work, with her certificate - a course which she did whilst on leave learning about cooking and baking.

Mamsy saw the course advertised in the newspaper, and decided it would be good for her to further her knowledge and skills. We respect the way she used her own initiative, to further develop herself!

Mamsy joined LETCEE as a shy young women. Today she is a vibrant, confident, important member of our team . Last year Mamsy prepared over 20 000 lunches and dinners for our learners!

We are looking forward to the cheesecake she's promised to bake us this week!

What are we REALLY doing for children with disabilities?

Yesterday I was at a network meeting where the topic of discussion was around children and disability. As the various presenters spoke and questions were asked, I was transported back to my first year at University where we were told that people with disabilities were only disabled because of their environments. The fact is that the environment or the community are the disabling factors and not the person's functional difficulties.

As the meeting progressed I was shocked to hear what little in roads had been made in a city in terms of removing these barriers as opposed to those that have been made over the past 7 years in the Umzinyathi District in Kwazulu-Natal. After being told that the Department of Education did not see a need for special schools in Umzinyathi District, there is now a registered special school in Msinga and an informal special school in Umvoti who are in the process of registering. In some areas people have successfully advocated for taxi owners to stop charging double fare for people in wheelchairs and therapists and parents alike have been able to quote Educations White Paper 6 back at the schools to enable children to access mainstream schooling, despite their difficulties.

So the question I pose to myself and others is this....Have we become complacent in advocating for the rights of these children and families or are we persevering through some difficult processes to ensure that more and more children in South Africa have access to the opportunities that every child deserves?

A hard hitting reality

Over the past couple of months I have been busy with LETCEE's new website and this has meant that I have been looking through photographs of many of the families that we have been working with over the past two years. As I began to recognise the same children coming up in the photographs (with very happy faces I might add) I noticed that they are still wearing the same clothes (jackets and pants) two years down the line. The clothes have faded a little and they only reach half way down the children's arms and legs. Wow, it made me realize that though we have an ECI programme, maybe greater effort needs to be placed on family resources and sources of income generation so that these families can generate their own income to provide for basic needs such as clothing for their childen.