Last month, we mentioned that teacher Londi is looking for sponsor for fencing our school, so this month we will hear more about her experiences on that.
Londi’s Education
When she was completing school, Teacher Londi was sponsored by a Canadian based organization which helps orphaned and vulnerable children in Eswatini with education. The organization paid for Londi’s school fees from second grade until she completed high school in 2011. She has stayed in touch with them since then.
Teacher Londi said, “In 2020, they (Swazi kids) asked me to mentor the kids which they are sponsoring in the community by being some sort of a guidance teacher.” Teacher Londi said by doing that she was so close with the people from the organization.
Last year, the organization changed from supporting Swazi kids with education, to focus more on development projects, mainly in schools. Teacher Londi said “The minute I heard that they are now helping schools with construction projects, I thought of Matjana preschool’s fence.”
Matjana Preschool’s fences
Matjana’s garden fence, which was constructed out of treated timber poles fixed with cement, donated by an Australian friend who came to visit in 2016, is still looking good. However, the boundary fence, which keeps our students safe inside the yard throughout the school day, and keep cattle and other animals out at night, is not in good shape.
The boundary fence was constructed with untreated poles that parents cut from the forest. The poles get eaten by termites and rot, so they need to be replaced periodically, which is a lot of work and a lot of tress.
Teacher Londi said,” This is a big problem for the school because almost every day animals like goat will sleep in our school and pee on the verandahs of the buildings which leaves our school very dirty.” This also creates a lot of work for the teachers.
Mrs Dlamini, chairlady of the school committee said,” Teachers have to start by cleaning the verandah’s every day before they start their normal duties.” It’s time they could better spend playing with the kids or planning for the school day.
After seeing how much our preschool needs fence and after hearing about the changes in Swazi Kids focus, Londi consulted the school committee. They approved the idea of asking for fence. A community member who is a qualified quantity surveyor helped Londi work out how much the materials needed to build a proper fence would cost.
Teacher Londi said,” The committee was worried about me going alone (to meet the project manager of Swazi Kids) but I assured them that I am confident going alone, mainly because I knew the guy very well.
“When I met him in Mbabane, the manager assured me that he will send the fence proposal to the Director and founder of Swazi Kids in Canada,” Londi said. ”I felt so good about the entire process, the project manager was so nice to me and gave me all positive comments about the proposal.”
We are keeping our fingers crossed and pray that we get the funding to rebuild the fence. Our parents have committed to coming to work on building the fence, if we get the funding.
We are grateful to friends of Matjana who helped us in running the school by giving us money to pay wages and buy supplies for the school. We hope we will get the fence funding, so that we can use the money from our friends to pay wages and cover the day to day costs of running the school.