Dumisani Ngubane, principal of Isiqalo Primary School in Bekkersdal believes, “A well-covered book is always interesting to the eye”.
This is what he said when he addressed a big crowd of young learners, teachers and stakeholders from various organisations on Wednesday, 29 January.
The learners could not contain their excitement as they were waiting for their books that had been covered by volunteers from all these organisations and from the community.
“Organisations have a role to play in our society, and so do parents and the children themselves,” said Soso Mavuso, chairperson of the School Governing Body (SGB) as he expressed his gratitude.
“We thank you for the support you give to these young children; but we must not forget that they also have a role to play, here at school and in their homes. We thank them for their conduct – we do not hear stories that they behave unruly, we don’t get called to come and resolve fights and issues of bullying matters,” he said.
“This initiative shows it really takes a nation to raise a child. A child needs support from all stakeholders in our society to grow,” added Tebogo Modise from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA).
“We appreciate this initiative and gesture of kindness; it adds value to our work and encourages teachers and children to be excited about their books, because a clean and neat book is attractive. Therefore we thank you and we hope that you will continue to lend a hand and assist our young learners,” Dumisani added.
Dumile Sithole, MMC of the Rand West City Local Municipality, also applauded the organisations, local NGOs and the mine for participating in this Back to School campaign to help young learners from historically disadvantaged communities.
“We are grateful for this gesture of goodwill and we wish our young learners the best of luck for 2020,” he said.
Dorothy Shueu, the Bekkersdal Library Programmes Librarian concluded, “Today’s readers are tomorrow’s leaders. Therefore, we must make sure that we give them all the right tools to pave their way. This initiative has shown that if we work together, we can achieve so much more. We are grateful to be part of this value-adding initiative,” she said.
The children showed their appreciation to those who contributed to giving them such a great gift by singing to them.
