Mqanduli schoolchildren walking on sunshine

Foundation steps in to donate shoes

THE humiliation of going to school wearing old and worn-out shoes every day, some tied with fence strings to keep them intact, will be a thing of the past for 270 pupils from Gengqe Senior Secondary School in Mqanduli.

On Friday the MTN Foundation donated a pair of brand new school shoes for each pupil in the school.

The donation formed part of MTN’s employee volunteerism initiative called MTN 21 Days of Y’ello Care, which involves thousands of the company’s employees across the country volunteering their time, resources and skills in assisting poor communities.

Grade 11 pupil Thando Matiti said many of his schoolmates came from very poor backgrounds where parents could not afford to buy them proper school shoes.

To make matters worse, some stay in faraway villages and had to walk more than 10km to school and back every day.

“Some parents can only afford to buy those cheap R100 school shoes that will only last a month,” he said.

He said as a result, many of those who walked long distances to school in worn-out shoes ended up bunking school, especially on rainy or very cold days.

“Some of them have to cross rivers to get here and walk on unfriendly gravel roads and footpaths,” he said.

The school is one of the poorest in Mqanduli.

It is also one of the worst performing academically, and absenteeism is a major contributing factor in this.

Gengqe principal Zimasa Pantshwa confirmed the school had only achieved a 14% matric pass rate last year, and she emphasised that there were challenges which contributed to that.

She said they were grateful for the donation as it would go a long way towards inspiring the pupils to prioritise their education.

The pupils’ plight was highlighted by concerned Gengqe village resident Bathini Qekeveka, who is also the ANC’s branch secretary in the area.

He had alerted MTN’s senior manager for regulatory affairs, Cheryl Dinklemann, who had visited a school in one of the neighbouring villages to hand over a computer lab with telecommunications and postal services deputy minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams earlier this year, to the pupils’ plight.

“I told her about the school’s poor performance and we exchanged numbers. While people rely on agriculture to make ends meet, the majority survive through state social grants.”

Dinklemann said she knew she had to do something as soon as she spoke to Qekeveka.

“I couldn’t pretend that it [the conversation with him] never happened and so I was able to convince the board to include Gengqe in the list of schools we would help,” she said.

MTN’s Eastern Cape general manager Vusi Ndwandwe, who officiated the handing over event, said the donation was in line with the company’s corporate investment initiative focussing on helping out needy schools across the province.

A sum of R4-million will be spent on a variety of initiatives in line with the needs of each school.

He said, in hindsight, the donations also helped raise the company’s profile in many communities.

“We want the community to know we care beyond just connectivity and them owning cellphones.”

Ndwandwe said a total of 300 pairs of shoes were given at Gengqe, with some going to Genqe Junior Secondary School. —