Youth uplift Quarry Heights crèche

THE youth from News Creation Bible Church recently embarked on a project to uplift the community of Quarry Heights by renovating the Khanya Educare Centre, a crèche and nursery school which provides meals and education, to about 100 children from infancy up to the age of five years old. The initiative, dubbed Project Khanya, saw the youth raise money for three new wendy houses to serve as classrooms at the school.

The team is appealing for donations to complete the project by refurbishing the centre’s kitchen and renovating the bathrooms. School principal, Irene Tembe said the crèche closed because they did not meet Covid-19 requirements.

“Since there is a need for social distancing, we can’t open yet because we don’t meet the safety regulations. We had to close because the classrooms were ruined, and because we don’t have PPE and sanitiser. The wendy houses we used for classrooms were almost destroyed. The youth helped us a lot, these wendy houses are brand new,” she said.

PPE and hand sanitiser are among the items Tembe needs before she can reopen the crèche.

Also read: No link identified between Covid-19 and breastfeeding

“Education at crèche is the only foundation for children, even the babies are learning. Without this education, they will struggle in primary school. Before Covid-19 we had 104 children,” she said.

Greenwood Park resident, Lorraine Reddy is part of the children’s foundation, an initiative at New Creation Bible Church.

“We try to reach out to the community and do projects where we can uplift and upgrade. In 2019, the principal of this crèche, situated in Quarry Heights, approached us and told us about the bad condition of the crèche. We brought the youth from our church on board and they were able to find sponsors to upgrade three of the classrooms. It seems like the project came to a halt there, with the outbreak of Covid-19, it was very difficult to get people on board to lend a hand to upgrade the centre,” she said.

Hadassah Ramiah, a youth from the church, encouraged other youth in the community to look for ways to assist others.

Also read: Education department releases revised school calendar

“Our youth took initiative because we wanted to make a difference in this community. It was something we all wanted to work toward. It gave us a purpose as well, I think that’s what really drove us to work on this project,” she said.

Caxton Local Media Covid-19 reporting

Dear reader,
As your local news provider, we have the duty of keeping you factually informed on Covid-19 developments. As you may have noticed, mis- and disinformation (also known as “fake news”) is circulating online. Caxton Local Media is determined to filter through the masses of information doing the rounds and to separate truth from untruth in order to keep you adequately informed. Local newsrooms follow a strict pre-publication fact-checking protocol. A national task team has been established to assist in bringing you credible news reports on Covid-19.
Readers with any comments or queries may contact National Group Editor Irma Green (irma@caxton.co.za) or Legal Adviser Helene Eloff (helene@caxton.co.za).

You can also sign up for news alerts on Telegram. Send us a Telegram message (not an SMS) with your name and surname (ONLY) to 060 532 5532.  

Here’s where you can download Telegram on Android or Apple.