People’s poet answers distress call for pupils’ masks
Getting personal protective equipment (PPE) has been a challenge nearly as old as the Covid-19 pandemic.
When a school principal called philanthropist and people’s poet Zolani Mkiva with a plea for a donation of face masks, the request did not fall on deaf ears.
Some pupils had no masks when schools opened on Monday, the Dispatch was told.
Mkiva, an ANC MP and Contralesa’s secretary-general, answered within three days of the call and six schools in his hometown of Dutywa are benefiting from 2,500 face masks donated through the Mkiva Humanitarian Foundation.
The foundation was formed in honour of his late grandfather Dudulirhamba Mkiva, a traditional leader and ANC activist who died in 1999.
Mkiva told the Dispatch on Monday the donation was to ensure pupils did not lack the necessary equipment.
“When I received the call [last week] from the Ngwenze principal, I realised it was possible for other schools to be experiencing the same challenge,” he said.
The senior secondary schools are Ngwenze, Mazizini, Thubelitsha, Enoch Mamba, Mbhashe, Nqabane and Jongilanga, which Mkiva adopted five years ago.
Himself an alumnus of Nqabane, Mkiva said though the initiative was an expensive exercise as they were dealing with huge numbers of pupils, the intervention was fulfilling.
“It is an investment in the future of the children, who will carry the baton forward.”
The masks were handed over to the school principals on Monday.
His grandfather was an educationist and a firm believer in community development, he said. Mkiva, no stranger to making donations in the fight against the virus, contributes half his royalties to the foundation.
Last year he donated PPE worth over R1m to the Eastern Cape government and municipalities to help the fight against Covid-19.
Ngwenze principal Litha Mbiza praised Mkiva’s aid.
He said they were told by the department to use the school nutrition programme funds to buy PPE for their schools.
“But we have more than 600 pupils in our school. We said the money would run out without buying food so we called him [Mkiva] for assistance.”