Masonwabe Educare gets new building
Masonwabe Educare Centre in Barcelona informal settlement in Nyanga has been given a new building where their pupils can grow and thrive.
The centre, owned by Thandiswa Nyikana, has over 80 pupils and six teachers.
The new building was officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Thursday, June 13.
Janine McEvoy, a business development manager at Breadline Africa, said the gathering was a day to celebrate an exciting project where a collaboration came together, with a funder from the United Kingdom, and food security NPO Ladles of Love who came on board to supply nutrition to the Early Childhood Development (ECD) centre.
“We came onboard to supply this ECD with safe infrastructure, with dignity that creates an exciting learning environment for the children, because at Breadline we feel that foundation learning is the most important phase of a child’s life to get ready for school,” said Ms McEvoy.
She said the building was built with carbon negative material, which makes it environmentally friendly and speaks to recycling material and its learning opportunity for children to understand that waste products do not have to end at landfills.
“Local community was also involved to help build this, and VPUU our partner on the ground made sure that communication was flowing between community leaders and councillors and community members formed part of this project to make it a reality.”
Early Childhood Development lead at VPUU, Phethang Mabeba said they were asked to support the community participation aspect of the project because they were already doing work with ECD centres in the area.
“Working with Breadline SA was therefore a no-brainer to collectively change the lives of children, change spaces and change the environment, bringing a beacon of hope for generations to come,” said Ms Mabeba.
Principal of Masonwabe Educare Centre, Thandiswa Nyikana said she opened the centre in 2016 with only four children. She said she met Breadline SA in 2020 and they visited her a number of times.
“They asked me to ask my neighbours to move so we can have enough space to build this new structure. I had to buy out my neighbours' properties.”
Ms Nyikana said she is still in talks with more neighbours to buy their properties as she needs to have secure parking and space for a garden.
She said the new building is a big change for her and the children as the old structure used to have challenges.
“In winter when it's raining the water would come through and wet our mat, kids ended up with no place to sit on, when it was windy the roof would be blown away,” she said.
She said during Covid-19 the centre almost collapsed as they only relied on children's monthly fees. She added that the new structure will help the kids to excel as now they have a secure and well equipped space to learn.
Founder of Ladles of love Danny Diliberto said: “When you go out and talk to organisations they are very very strong on education which is important, but if we don't put nutrition with education we are failing”.
