A gift of sight for Alexandra’s Emfundisweni learners
ALEXANDRA – Emfundisweni rains shoes, socks, school uniforms, food parcels and sanitary pads as Paul Mashatile swings into his usual giving mood.
Learners at Emfundisweni Primary School, which has been adopted as a model for a transformation project in Alex, scored a double donation in late November and beginning of
December when ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile came bearing gifts.
Mashatile and his Capetonian friend and businessman, Fernando Acafrao, drove a luxury bus fully laden with clinical equipment and stationed it at the school grounds for a weeklong programme of testing the eyesight of the school’s 1 169 learners and 37 teachers, led by principal Thembakazi Giyama.
The school has been adopted by the Manzi Mashatile Foundation, which was formed in honour of the memory and legacy of Mashatile’s wife, Manzi Ellen Mashatile, who died on 5 July, days after his [Paul Mashatile’s] mother.
Mashatile, an Alexandrian along with his wife, a childhood sweetheart from their high schools days at Alexandra High School which used to be a boys-only school just before the couple’s arrival, said the bus would ensure the children at Emfundisweni, where Manzi started her education, will all have their eyes tested.
“This is because our children often struggle to cope with the learning environment not because they are dull or just don’t understand but it has a lot to do with sight. Some cannot see what the teacher has written on the board and fear to express it and as a result, just live without understanding the lesson of the day.
“It is for this reason why, on this new journey with Emfundisweni’s transformation, I have decided to attend the basic requirements of testing the eyesight of children as they embark on their long educational trip,” Mashatile said.
He told Alex News in an interview during the launch of his wife’s foundation at Cedarwood Hotel in Sandton that children found to be wanting glasses will be issued with spectacles. When the bus is done at Emfundisweni, it will then move to the township’s other schools.
While clinical staff were busy testing the children’s eyesight, Mashatile was handing out gifts in the form of shoes, socks, school uniforms, jerseys, sanitary pads for girls and food parcels for all.
