Alex’s Emfundisweni will be a marvel school for all to see, vows ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile
ALEXANDRA – Delighted Emfundisweni Primary School principal Thembakazi Giyama said she has no words to express her gratitude for the decision to transform her school.
Manzi Mashatile’s passion for education will hopefully see her alma mater Emfundisweni Primary School transformed from a dilapidated centre of learning in Alexandra to a state-of-the-art institution.
This is if funds pour into the Manzi Mashatile Foundation in honour of the late wife of ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile. Manzi passed away on 5 July this year just days after Mashatile’s mother.
Speaking at the launch of his wife’s foundation at Cedarwoods of Sandton, Mashatile said he had decided to honour the memory of his wife and her passion for education by establishing this foundation in her name and use her passion for education to better communities, not just in Alexandra where she was born but the entire country.
“We have thus decided to adopt Emfundisweni as a pilot project of the model of the work we intend to do for this township of her birth before we venture into other townships in Johannesburg and impoverished remote areas of Gauteng, after which we shall branch to other towns and provinces,” he said
“We want to turn the schools in our country into conducive centres of learning with modern technological equipment and facilities that are found in the so-called Model C schools. Our reward will be putting a smile on a child who will be able to access quality education from a state-of-the-art school in a township.
“Our children will no longer have to migrate from their townships to seek quality education in other areas. They will have that quality of education where they live. But we cannot do that alone, neither can government do it alone. We would like other organisations to come on board as well and help us give hope where there was despair.”
Mashatile said the launch of the foundation was just a start of the journey. “We still have many more hills to climb. I hope our journey of a thousand miles to make Emfundisweni the best school in Alex has just begun and that we shall not walk alone.”
Delighted as she was, Emfundiswen principal Thembakazi Giyama said she had no words to express her gratitude. “I am over the moon with happiness and for once we can have our leaking roof repaired and our classrooms and the whole school modernised. This calls for celebrations,” she said.
