Heeding Mandela’s call to fight poverty
ACTION Against Poverty is the theme for this year’s Mandela Day. As the world commemorates his birthday on July 18 by devoting 67 minutes to an act of kindness, The Mercury Hibberdene Children’s Holiday Home, will be planting a seed in the minds of children they hope will ultimately blossom into a better life, free from poverty.
On Monday, 120 children will be welcomed to their first environmental holiday camp. In addition, the home, a project of The Mercury, will treat another group of 120 children to a day at the Wild Coast Sun Wild Waves Water Park, thanks to a partnership with Wild Coast Sun and FNB.
Charmaine Barnwell, who runs the home on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast, said these children would probably never get a chance to experience the joy of being in a water theme park. “There will be lunch, sweets and cake and five-star treatment,” she said .
Their camps give children from underprivileged backgrounds the chance to have a holiday. “It provides a safe environment where they are free from worry. They don’t have to worry about chores or looking after their brothers and sisters, they can just be children.”
Some of the nearly 1 000 children who come to the home’s holiday camps sleep in their own beds for the first time, some come from homes without running water or electricity.
“They get to experience what life is like outside their environment and, hopefully, think ‘this is the life I want to live when I’m older, I want to be be able to afford three meals a day and to go on holiday’. It’s great to tell a child they can do anything they put their minds to. Some can’t conceive a life outside poverty. After the holiday here, they see there is a different world out there. They dream about it at night and work towards it,” said Barnwell.
Over the years, some of the children who have enjoyed holidays at the home have come back as successful adults to express their gratitude for the time spent there which changed their perspective on life.
Environmental
Barnwell added that the home was excited to host the first environmental holiday camp next week.
“We usually have adventure camps but for the first time on top of the adventure, we will be teaching children about the environment, how to identify different plants, how to take care of the environment and doing environmental art.”
The children, aged between 8 and 13 from poor schools in the Ugu district (Port Shepstone), were chosen as they have an interest in the environment and are doing well in their schools’ environmental programmes.
As an NGO , the home relies on funding and donations. When they are not hosting a youth camp, it is rented out for extra income.
Nelson Mandela said: “The children must, at last, play in the open veld, no longer tortured by the pangs of hunger or ravaged by the disease or threatened with the scourge of ignorance, molestation and abuse, and no longer required to engage in deeds whose gravity exceeds the demands of their tender years.”
The Hibberdene Home brings these words to life by providing a safe place where children can just play and be children.
“Seeing the children’s reaction is amazing. They realise they do not always have to be poor, they are motivated to strive for a better life. They leave here singing songs we taught them, go home and teach other children the games they played and spark something in them as well,” Barnwell said.
She added that many of the children also leave the camp having learned to swim, they know how to wash their hands before and after each meals, and have been subtly taught to say please and thank you.
“We slide in these small life lessons with fun.
“We’re not going to try to change their lives in the five days they are at camp but a seed is definitely planted,” she said.
If you would like to make a donation to The Mercury Hibberdene Children’s Home, please contact: Independent Media Community projects, call Molehe Molosioa at 031 308 2431 or e-mail molehe.molosioa@inl.co.za
The home is in desperate need of plates, toiletries and clothes and there is always a need for food. The homes’ two buildings, which accommodate boys and girls separately, also need curtains and paint for the roofs.