The dedication of one person can transform a society. UNISON member Nicky Lee was so affected by a visit to an impoverished community in South Africa she stayed to co-found a self-help organisation enabling them to educate and feed themselves
It began in Africa
“Before Nicky Lee we had no classrooms, only trees,” says Hlengiwe Mthimkhulu.
Hlengiwe is the head teacher of Mpontshini school, a stick and stone hut in rural kwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, near the borders with Swaziland and Mozambique.
The school – located in the Majwayiza community of the Ingwavuma
district – had three large trees trees outside where teachers would
take the kids so as not to disturb others.
Ingwavuma is an extremely rural area reliant on subsistence farming. Unemployment
is very high and the distance from an industrial life means few have any
chance of income. A high incidence of HIV and AIDS has created a generation
of orphans and carers.
When Nicky Lee first turned up in
1997 – using her month’s annual leave from her job as a social
worker to train an unqualified pre-school teacher at the school –
things looked bleak. But the community’s willingness to help itself
had a profound effect on her – greeted by an army of parents all
quietly building more school space for their children, she wept.
“We couldn’t understand why Nicky cried,” says Ms Mthimkhulu.
“But she said she’d never seen such a thing.”
Ms Lee explains she was impressed by the parents’ dedication as
well as upset by the poverty – those who couldn’t afford school
fees helped build the school instead.
“The parents had built a tiny stick building themselves with materials
they’d scrounged or borrowed where five children were trying to
learn,” she recalls. “They refused to give up hope.”
Now the school is just a part of a flourishing community called Zisize
– the Zulu word for self help– co-founded by Ms Lee and Ms
Mthimkhulu. The centre started as a resource for teachers to access books,
charts and materials and grew from there.
Zisize now runs a pre-school class, after school club, lending library,
and study groups for high school pupils. In addition, It supports a number
of families by supplying a feeding program and school uniforms.
Although Ms Lee is humble she is also rightfully proud of the role she
has been able to play – inspired by her late father. Heaton Lee
was a radical white South African who battled prejudice and atrocious
working conditions for his black mineworker colleagues before he moved
to Wales in 1937.
Nicky went to South Africa in 1995 to visit her father’s family
and fell in love with the country. After her volunteering stint in 1997
she went back again the following year for what was supposed to 12 months,
and has been there ever since.
UNISON branches and regions around the country are now united in helping
Ms Lee with regular donations. The changes this money has brought about,
and will bring about, are dramatic.
Nkosingiphile Gumbi is 12 and lives at the orphan cottage on the school
site (below left with Serious – the grandson of the carer at the
Ingwavuma centre, who also lives at the cottage). His mother and younger
sister have died of AIDS and his father is dying. He went to live with
an uncle, who beat him, so he ran away. When he was 11 he slept in the
bush, begged food, and scavenged in dustbins for two weeks before he was
brought to Zisize.
“My mother died and my father is sick,” he explains. “He
is not working. There was no food at home – no-one cares about us.”
“I looked for a job but I couldn’t find one because they said
I was too young. Then the principal helped me and now I live at school.
The principal and Ms Lee give me what I want. I promise that I will respect
them and learn at school.”
In the first few months after Nkosingiphile came to live at the school,
he would wake at night to eat, disturbing the four boys who lived with
him in a hut. He was wary his food and security might not last. Now he
is happy, healthy, doing well in school and growing daily in confidence.
Ms Mthimkhulu and Ms Lee work closely together on all aspects of Zisize
– from the orphan cottages and feeding programs to the basic schooling.
“Our education used to be the education of oppression,” says
Ms Mthimkhulu. “We didn’t use our minds or challenge ourselves.
The education system was teacher-centred not child-centred. The children
were always told what to do, copy, write, memorise – and all the
history was very pro-white.
“When Nicky arrived she had a few suggestions. We tried them and
couldn’t believe we hadn’t tried them before! Our minds needed
someone to wake them up; Nicky was that person.
“We have taken her on as one of us now. She is a member of staff,
one of the team. And we tell her everything. She is our hope. Our angel.”
Last year was a busy one for the trust. The feeding programme was extended
so that more than 300 of the most needy children are now guaranteed one
meal a day.
At a site called Mpontshini, building work has included six new classrooms,
a hall and admin block. The teachers are working hard to give their school
high educational standards to match the buildings and have won awards
for science and for literacy from READ, a literacy organisation, working
in rural schools.
Zisize also purchased a uniform for each child in the Majwayiza community
and it paid four fifths of the school fees for those too poor to pay R50
(£5) a year – these two measures ensured 100% school attendance
in this particular community.
Zisize has drawn praise across South Africa for encouraging self reliance
and another non-governmental organisation was inspired to provide large-scale
funding to train adults from the community in recycling, craft making,
sustainable agriculture and aquaculture, setting up an ecofriendly laundry
and providing showers and toilets for the children living on site. It
is hoped electricity will also be provided.
Ms Lee has set some goals for this tenth anniversary year of South Africa’s
democracy – such as doubling the number of children Zisize feeds
at weekends and school holidays.
To do this they need 300 people to give £2 a month. They also need
money to continue providing a clean supply of drinking water, which they
do wherever they provide food.
“There are so many problems in Ingwavuma,” Ms Lee says. “HIV,
drought, hunger and poverty are just some. It would be easy to be overwhelmed.
But it is better to light a candle than complain about the dark.”
