Basic education should be free and accessible to ALL children. But this is not the case in South Africa.
Through decades of legally entrenched apartheid, separate school structures were created for children of different races and those with disabilities have been systematically discriminated against.
A legal framework created in 1948, that continued for almost 5 decades, used the word ‘deviant’ to distinguish disabled children from ‘normal’ children, and this distinction was reinforced by education programmes and learning materials that saw disabled children as a ‘challenge to teachers and a burden to the system.’
Although that abhorrent word has now been replaced with the term ‘handicapped’, the Human Rights Watch estimates that over 600,000 children living with disabilities are still not in school in South Africa.
Many are refused access to mainstream schools because of their disability.
South Africa remains at the bottom of all international learning outcomes tables and most poor children do not receive the education they need to escape poverty.
Given that 56% of children are classified as being poor - that’s terrifying.
There are glaring racial disparities: 95% of black African children live below the poverty line and 4.4 million live below the extreme poverty line of R403 per month.
While a few may pass their secondary school MATRIC certificate, many more leave, or never start, school and so lack basic life skills.
Their ability to access employment or further education is then improbable.
Tragically, poor children, and especially those with disabilities, are also more vulnerable to abuse and violence both in school and in the community.
Your support is helping to right the wrongs of generations of apartheid and injustice. You are enabling the Beaded Anklet project to work in one of the poorest communities, educating children about self-esteem; relational and sexual health; HIV; their human rights; and how to get help for themselves or their siblings (as AIDS has left many orphaned and head of their family).
Over a quarter of South Africa’s population is under 14 - so relationships and sex education like this is SO critical as younger and younger children are becoming parents - and the poverty cycle continues with each generation.
Our 1000 blocks project is also helping protect these vulnerable children and their caregivers, by helping them build new, safe homes.
Something as simple (to us) as a lockable door helps protect these young people from rape and abuse.
As the children’s caregivers are making the building blocks themselves, this has also given them new skills for an income-making enterprise.
Gift
Gift was refused a place at school because he has Downs Syndrome. His mother Doreen says, “I have to teach him myself and so cannot work. I left school at 12, so I can only teach him what I know.”
Mthoku
11-year-old Mthoku has spina bifida. His mother applied to 9 different schools before finally getting him accepted at one. Unfortunately, his school is far away and charges school fees. They need to get up at 4am every day in order to get him to school. His mother explains,
“I have to carry him out of the house and to the taxi rank each day and put him in a taxi which will take another hour and a half to get him to school. The transport costs me 400 rand every month.”
“If you have a child with a disability, the schools are too far away, the school fees are higher and we just can’t afford that money.”
“I have another child. She goes to a normal school but is always tired because she must walk with me early in the morning too.”
