Algoa FM’s donation a big boost for DV day care centre

FORTY children at a Duncan Village day care centre will soon have their dignity restored thanks to a R55 000 donation from a local radio station on Friday.

Algoa FM donated the lump sum and Wimpy breakfast hampers to Rise and Shine Day Care Centre’s children aged between 0 and 6 years. The creche is situated in Moscow, a sub-section of the poor township.

Its owner Nozie Mswi, said she started the creche in 2013 under difficult circumstances including not having toilet facilities at the premises, but with the intention of keeping the children in a safe and stimulating environment.

“I started the creche when I saw 10 children playing in a puddle of water one chilly day in 2013. When I asked their parents why they let their children play with water and why they weren’t at school, they said they could not afford to take them because of the distance and they could not afford to pay for transport and the fees.

“The community here is very poor, with most people unemployed and waking up to look for piece jobs. They desperately needed a creche nearby to care for their kids and give them the stimulation and education every child deserves,” she said.

Mswi said because most toilets in the informal settlements of Duncan Village were communal, she did not want to expose children to those toilets while in her care.

“Elderly men and women use the communal toilets and they are obviously open to the public.

“I cannot secure it just for my creche, which is why I opted to use the bucket system inside the creche.

“We have been pleading for donations for sometime now to build our own toilets on the premises and to have our own running water, and taps on site. Algoa FM has heard our cry and this will make our lives so much easier, while giving the children a dignified way of relieving themselves,” she said.

A grandparent of two children at the creche, Peliswa Holoshe, said she was excited about the donation.

“This is a good creche and it deserves all the necessary support because so many people rely on this woman [Mswi] to go to work and find jobs to put something on the table,” Holoshe said.

The public relations manager at Algoa FM, Donhe Damon, said their support for the creche was part of their community responsibility programme known as Algoa Cares.

“Algoa Cares supports beneficiaries that fall in categories of health, education and environment.

“This creche was selected as a beneficiary of the 2017 Algoa Cares Charity Golf Day, where the funds were raised. We visited the creche and established there was a dire need,” she said. —