Local community forum ensures all kids are ready for school
The Back-to-School Festival campaign helps learners walk their school journey and learn with dignity, without fear or doubt.
A local organisation based in the informal settlements in the far east of Mamelodi, Vhathu Phanda Community Forum, has been ensuring that every child is ready for school.
The community forum which is surrounded by more than 10 informal settlements and helps these communities with different programmes, has made it possible for the children to be school-ready through its annual campaign called #Back-to-School Festival, which started in 2022.
Project manager, Boitumelo Mashakeng, said it is an ongoing back-to-school campaign that started at the Amanda Park taxi rank.
She said the campaign has spread to 10 communities, where school uniforms were exchanged between community members to help those learners from poor backgrounds.
“We are covering school books, polishing shoes, ironing clothes, cutting hair and plaiting schoolgirls’ hair,” said Mashakeng.
“Other community members bought school shoes out of their own pockets, and books were covered and torn school uniforms fixed by volunteers from our different communities.”
She said the programme officially started with the Vhathu Phanda Men’s Brigade as a platform to teach men to be involved in their children’s lives.
Mashakeng said today everyone is involved: volunteers from different communities and Mamelodi stakeholders.
“We are working in 10 communities, which include 10 schools, and our main target is to ensure 2 000 children are ready to go to school,” she said.
The Back-to-School campaign started on January 16 and will end on February 13, and is growing every year.
Thabo Moshabelo, chairperson of the forum, added the campaign targets mostly children from informal settlements experiencing bullying caused by being untidy and not having school uniforms.
He said the aim is for every child to look presentable when coming to school and to look like the other learners in their school uniforms.
“We are trying to close the gap, and we don’t want learners to experience bullying because of their backgrounds,” said Moshabelo.
“It feels good to see children smiling and boosting their confidence because they will no longer be ashamed to come to school with torn school shoes or uniforms,” he added.
He also said the Back-to-School Festival campaign will help learners walk their journey and learn with dignity, without fear or doubt.
“The initiative has genuinely restored their dignity and hope and will boost learners’ confidence to come to school every day,” he said.
Mashakeng added that it did not end there. “We are pleading with community members to come on board and help with any form of donation, from school shoes to uniforms and book covers,” he said.
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