Timely boost for Roodeport disaster community by Bhebhe - TopicsExpress

Timely boost for Roodeport disaster community by Bhebhe Mandla 12 July 2014 | 955 Views Related Stories Chief Ndondo to be buried on Saturday | 02 July 2014 Matabeleland interests will be better protected by federalism | 01 July 2014 Make Shona, Ndebele, English compulsory in all schools - Sikhala | 30 June 2014 Matabeleland Youth Fund Indaba invite | 30 June 2014 Men shun circumcision as foreskins are used for ritual purposes | 26 June 2014 PNG Formations The little communities of the otherwise quiet Jabulisa and Setshankwe villages of Nkayi North at the boundary with Gokwe South will never forget the 8th of March 2014. This is the day when 18 bodies of their sons who died at the Roodeport mine disaster in South Africa arrived in a convoy of hearses for mass funerals within the neighbouring villages. 10 of the deceased were all from Jabulisa Village, 5 from Setshwankwe and 3 from across the boundary river in Gokwe South. The death of these fathers and bread winners left a total of 18 widows, 44 now fatherless children and 22 very old parents and grand parents all faced with the harsh economic conditions and need for survival in this relatively poor community. Of the 44 kids half of them are attending school at both Jabulisa and Setshankwe Primary Schools of Nkayi North with a couple already dropped out of Secondary School due to lack of school fees and support following the death of their bread winners. Touched by this plight an online coordination of Matabeleland schools former students this week extended their helping hand to these communities donating stationery to grade seven students around the area as a starting point of a major intervention planned for the families of the deceased. Five primary schools, Jabulisa, Setshankwe, Somakhwilili, Tsheli and Saziyabana all in the schools cluster and zone of the villages affected by the deaths benefited from the donations. Addressing a gathering of parents, teachers and pupils at Jabulisa Primary School, the Matabeleland Ex Students Association Programme Director Mr Bekezela Maduma Fuzwayo expressed his associations condolences to the families of the deceased and the entire communities of Nkayi North and Gokwe South on the never to be forgotten tragedy that befell them. Fuzwayo expressed that the online gathering of his colleagues decided to visit the area to share their grief not only with the families of the deceased but the entire community as the tragedy was not only for the families concerned but the entire country. We have come all the way to Jabulisa and Setshankwe villages in particular to share our grief with you as the directly affected community but would not only end with you and the families concerned we decided to cover your neighbouring villages as well as the entire Nkayi North area and indeed the whole country was affected by this disaster, he said. Speaking at the same gathering, Programme coordinator Ms Winnie Ndebele encouraged the communities from Nkayi district and Matabeleland to give priority to education so as to build a strong future for the region. We need to change our thinking as a region and focus more of our attention into education. If we educate our children well we will be able to employ our children within our communities and develop our areas on our own, she said. Fuzwayo encouraged parents and teachers from the district to go flat out and look for all former students who went past their schools to come back and plough into the schools. Our organisation operates by getting donations from former students to help their schools, it will not be fair for us to take donations from former students of Gwanda schools and bring them to Nkayi. Its high time we find former students from Nkayi schools and get them to remember their schools and plough back to them. The Matabeleland Ex Students Association is an online gathering of former students of Matabeleland who contribute resources to schools of their members and donate to a specific need at the school. The Association works with schools that are willing to establish former students associations or already have them in place by linking them with prospective donors and other students from their schools. Explaining the idea of former students of Matabeleland at the donation in Jabulisa Fuzwayo emphasised that other provinces in the country are doing very well in education because their former students and communities are ploughing back to the schools without waiting for government to do it for them. We can not sit and cry all the time as Matabeleland and expect government and the donor community to rescue us. Its time that we stand up and do things on our own. We have a lot of people who went through these schools and they are now well up somewhere but leaving the schools that produced them to be dilapidated. Its time we plough back where we came from and this is just an example we are showing you and want you to develop it further, he said. So far the Association has donated books and other learning aids to about 20 Primary schools in both Matabeleland North and South provinces. According to Fuzwayo, the association4 dream is to have every school in the region starting an old students association which will work with he School Development Committees to develop the schools and produce better results. We are taking the issue of former students very seriously and we have since engaged set up plans of engaging with the Minister of Education to present and idea to him of making it mandatory for all schools to have former students associations as was done with SDCs and it be made law, said Fuzwayo. Roodeport Fuzwayo Matabeleland - See more at: bulawayo24/index-id-news-sc-regional-byo-50449.html#sthash.k8Je4Xty.dpuf