Colourful children‘s sanctuary faces challenges

A DURBAN woman, who noticed how mothers of infants and toddlers struggled with childcare while trying to make a living as street vendors, answered a personal call of duty. She started an easily accessible daycare right in the centre of one of the busiest parts of Durban, Mansel Road, where mothers could easily come and drop off their kids before starting their day.

The colourful corrugated building is an early childhood development centre called Qalakahle Early Childhood Development Centre, started by Jabu Ngobese who saw how unsafe it was for the children who wandered about during the day with no supervision or a place to go to as their parents went to work.

“I love children, and I love working with them. I noticed that in my area of work, a lot of them were at risk from the fast cars passing by, and they were exposed to drugs and prostitution in the area. It was just not a safe environment for them to be roaming around – also because a lot of them were already at school-going age but not going to school. I wanted to keep them in a safe place, but at the time, I could only afford a room to use as my crèche.

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“The room was not big enough because, as soon as the parents in the area got word of what I was doing, many of them brought in their kids, and I could not turn them away because my vision was keeping them safe,” said Ngobese. Due to the room needing a lot of work, such as ventilation, ablutions and mattresses, it was deemed hazardous, and the City, at one point, decided to shut the place down. We Are Durban, the organisation run by Linda Morrison, took on the task of rebuilding the crèche because it served a greater purpose in the area.

“When we started the project, I enlisted the help of my friends who were qualified in planning and building to build the crèche to a standard that was not only safe but also conducive to children,” said Morrison. The now colourful and safe crèche caters for 60 children, for daycare and learning purposes, with a number of ablution areas that are safe and open for the early childhood development (ECD) workers to be able to supervise the children while they make use of the restrooms.

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The crèche now also boasts a sleeping area for the children, which caters for children as young as three months old, plus a dedicated learning area. But, like any other business that offers services, Qalakahle ECD is not without its hurdles to overcome to keep the place running. Ngobese says they need donations as they run a feeding scheme for the children, and they are always in need of educational material for the children. Sometimes, they are unable to pay salaries as they use the money paid by the parents to pay the workers, which is not reliable.

“Our biggest struggle is that sometimes, parents fail to pay us, which makes running the place very stressful as I rely on their payments to pay the people who work at the centre. Also, sometimes, providing them with meals is hard as we run low on food supplies,” added Ngobese.

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