‘We can’t leave kids at dump sites’
A pastor and residents in informal settlements are opening their hearts to destitute children
From the outside the building looks like a warehouse. The rusted steel door and high windows reveal nothing of the activities inside. Just inside the door a makeshift bookshelf is packed with files, broken crayons, toilet paper, wet wipes and tiny school bags.
Small bodies lie on the floor. Some are asleep while others, lying side by side, continue their play in hushed delight. It’s 1pm and it’s time for “indoor free play”. Fifty-six square metres for 60 toddlers.
The walls are bare except for an A3 page stuck on one wall with the days of the week handwritten in blue and red crayons. On another wall, another A3 page outlines the daily programme, from 7.30am to 2pm.
The Turning Point daycare centre in Thembelihle informal settlement, near Lenasia, south of Johannesburg, was started by Soweto-based pastor Johannes Mabunda, who also helped set up a centre in the Waterworks informal settlement in Westonaria, west of Johannesburg.
His is a journey borne of a need that Mabunda spotted nearly a decade ago. “I was driving around the squatter camp when I saw children at a dumping site, some by themselves, others with their mothers looking for food. My heartwas touched and I asked myself: ‘What can we do?’
“I spoke to the mothers and they told me that was the only life they knew because they did not have money to take their children to crèche. Other parents said they could not take their children to crèche because they did not have proper documentation such as IDs because they are from outside the country.”
In Dlamini, Soweto, he was offered a piece of land by one of the residents and he erected a shack that became a daycare centre for the children who ordinarily spent their day at the dump. Women from Dlamini volunteered to help teach the children.
Mabunda then opened three more crèches. Two of them, in informal settlements in Randfontein, west of Johannesburg, were closed down after the residents were moved to formal houses. The centre in Dlamini operated for eight years until 2007 when the residents moved to houses in Lehae, near Lenasia.
Mabunda said that when he opened the centre in Waterworks in 2002, it was after he had seen two boys playing with a balloon but turned out to be a used condom.
Initially the children were taught under a tree once a week because there was no building to accommodate them. Then Mabunda’s brother came across an abandoned building. The brothers found the owner who gave them permission to use the building. Using donations Mabunda replaced the roof and opened it as a daycare centre. The 105m2 building provides shelter for 80 children.
“My family was discouraging me from opening a second centre because they saw how I was struggling in Dlamini, but those children had touched my heart. They would say: ‘You can’t work without finances. You are struggling.’ And I would say: ‘Let’s just move by faith, if we fail, we fail’,” said Mabunda.
Early childhood centres get funding from provincial departments of social development for food, educational resources and teachers’ stipends. Mabunda said he has not asked for assistance because he believes the childcare centres do not meet funding requirements — the teachers are not qualified and the buildings are run down.
“We’ve had a number of problems with social services because they have told us that we do not qualify to