A KIND OF MAGIC
Casting a small pebble in a pond makes the surface shiver and ripple, each action has a reaction.
During September ♥ girl and I decided to give an old Bedouin dress to Adel Beukes, a Flickr friend, who posted a comment on how much she liked the dress after I uploaded a Lomography photograph on Flickr. She was absolutely thrilled and this act of random kindness had an unplanned domino-effect that touched the lives of many through serendipitous karma. Adel is a professional photographer and she passes a small farm school, Ntebe Primary, on her way from home to the studio she works for each day.
She decided to take portrait photographs of all 120 kids in the school to continue the act of random kindness and give these portraits to the children. They never had the opportunity before to have their photos taken as is the practice in city schools where photographers go round each year taking photos which parents purchase.
Adel’s idea was a lovely gesture as a lot of the kids in this little school’s parents struggle to put food on the table. Proper clothing is a luxury and things like paying for a simple photograph doesn’t even factor in the equation. She also plans to have a small Christmas party for the kids early in December.
I was so touched by her enthusiasm that I asked her to sent the number of children in each grade of Ntebe Primary so that I could selects a book donation. Last week I visited the school together with Adel wearing that dress.
As I walked through the classrooms I was again shocked to the core about the lack of proper teaching aids in previously disadvantaged schools. There are no posters on the walls, the text books are out of date, in tatters from over use and in most instances at a far too difficult level for the kids to be able to read properly. The reading programmes Reading Matters donated in Sotho, their mother tongue, as well as English readers will at the very least give them a better chance of success and we’ll send out a trainer early next year with more books to train the teachers on how to use the resources.
One of the teachers remarked “I’m speechless” when we discussed what can be achieved with the books donated. Yes, I can understand that. I am also speechless but for entirely different reasons. What is happening in South African Education? Why is it that none of the R165 billion allocated in the 2010/11 educational budget reach the poorest of the poor schools where it’s needed the most? Why is it that the pre-school kids are “taught” outside as there is no classroom for them with no books or toys or anything to stimulate them? Why must a NGO’s do the work that government is supposed to do?
Education is a basic right of children, not something we deal with as an afterthought when hosting the soccer world cup take precedence and protracted teachers strikes over salaries waste a whole year of education that children won’t be able to catch up on.
Thanks Adel for showing me Ntebe Primary, at least we can make a small difference, one child at a time, one school at the time.
That’s the best we can do.
…..and there is magic at play.
This is a photo of Adel, wearing the coat of many colours, and yours truly on the deck of her recently finished home overlooking the Vaal River. If you’d like to steal my identity please do so. I’d prefer to be Captain Jack Sparrow piloting the Black Pearl. No, no NOT Jack Parow - you have to be South African to know who he is and why I don't want his identity.