Uthando Lwenkosi Home Based Care gives back to young people
KwaThema – A group of women from Uthando Lwenkosi Home Based Care have donated food parcels and school shoes and socks to some orphans and less fortunate learners from Lefa-Ifa Secondary School.
The women say they started providing Friday lunch for the less fortunate learners at the school in 2014.
“As religious groups, the main reason why we adopted the school was hearing the principal saying he has children who come from far. Some of them are orphans and others are from needy families, where the adults are struggling to provide.
“We were touched by his plight, so we came to speak to him and started making two pots of soup every Friday.
“What has been amazing for us is seeing the principal himself sometimes donating, to help us feed these children,” says Bishop Nomvula Ximba.
She adds that what worries them, is that the school has no feeding scheme, while other, surrounding schools do, which is hard to understand as this school has children coming from various surrounding informal settlements.
As the women believe it doesn’t help to focus just on these children and not on their home issues, they are looking at where they can help within these homes.
Ximba says they would love to see businesses coming on board to assist in the school, since members of the care group do this from their own pockets and are currently unable to feed all the learners who need food daily.
School principal Mbuyiseni Nxumalo explains that the school does not have a feeding scheme, as they have been put under the wrong quintile.
“We need to be put under quintile three, instead of four, due to our surroundings, as our area is surrounded by informal settlements, hence we have asked for this to be changed and are still waiting” he says.
One of the learners who benefited from the donation, Lerato Khoza (15), is very happy with what she has been given.
“I live with my mother and grandmother and they don’t work, so things tend to be tough at times, however, since these women have been here at our school, things have been better as we are now able to eat,” she says.
“Some of us don’t even get lunch or money to buy food, so now we at least get lunch and, when we need school essentials they help us.
“We thank these mothers, pray God will bless them for all they are doing for us and hope they can do it for other children like us.”
