Vandals almost destroy a woman’s big dream – a community library
Fikile Sondela who realised her big dream of opening a library in July 2019 in Zenzele received the sad news that the very library had been vandalised recently.
Management of the Zenzele Impumelelo Library has asked the community to help to restore the facility after it was vandalised recently. At least 300 books were destroyed and the structure damaged.
In October 2017, the Herald reported that 35-year-old Fikile Sondela had a big dream – to open a library. On Tuesday, June 4, this dream began to come true, when the Caring Women’s Forum donated a container to Impumelelo Wings, her non-profit organisation. This was the very first step towards reaching her ultimate goal of setting up a library. On Saturday, July 20, 2019 the library was opened officially.
“The facility which was donated to us in July three years ago was meant to benefit members of the community with literacy, and boost academic performance,” said Fikile.
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We’re extremely disappointed in what had happened here; we can’t think of any reason why this facility was targeted, other than it was merely a criminal act with the intention to set us back.
“We’ve seen that people generally have a culture of destroying public property, without any reason, and we fully condemn this behaviour,” Fikile said.
Items such as plugs, door handles and shelves were stolen while more than 300 books were destroyed. The facility was also vandalised during the 2020 hard lockdown.
“We’d really like some help to get this library fixed and fitted with plugs and a sanitary toilet, and possibility get a shack so that there can always be a guard on site,” Fikile said.
As a community leader, Fikile pleaded that people should stop the culture of destroying facilities that are meant to empower the community; instead they should be the ones protecting them.
Recently, we’ve had five young people from Zenzele who benefited from the library while they were in Grade 12. They’ve volunteered to help those who are currently in matric and are struggling; but how are we going to do such projects if our facilities are destroyed?” asked Fikile.
