Mnceba Junior Secondary School
Mnceba JSS is one of the OVC Project schools in Ntabankulu Cluster in Lusikisiki District. Mnceba location is a deep rural area located about 30km from the rural town of Ntanbankulu in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Caregiver of the school decided to join the local community project called Gumpe with the aim of forming partnerships with Gumpe wowen and share the plight of the OVC in the school. Gumpe Community Project is a women’s progressive association funded by Department of Social Development and Department of Agriculture to cultivate the vegetable gardens and supply the needy people in the village and sell to others to sustain the project.
The magnificent act by the Caregiver to associate herself with this project as the fellow woman of the land helped to attract their attention to the plight of the OVC at school. The Gumpe project adopted twenty five orphans at the time who benefit from the supply of their fresh vegetables, cooked food seven days of the week and holidays, organized school tours, Christmas clothes, school uniform, etc. until they receive their Foster Care Grant. Once these OVCs have been assisted another cohort of 25 learners from the same school is identified and assisted by Gumpe project.
Sandi High School
Phelisa Khalazana was doing grade 12 last year at Sandi High School which is twinned with a UK school called Berkhamstead High. She is the only girl in a family of six children from deep rural communities surrounding Sandi School, called Qandu location. At home they depend on subsistence farming and Government Social grants. To supplement limited resources available to their family, Phelisa’s father one of the victims of retrenchment from mines, sells fire wood by the road side and her mother spends most of her time sewing and selling clothes. Phelisa’s elderly brother passed grade 12 in 2007 and the parents could not afford to pay for his tertiary education and is still unemployed. Phelisa’s sibling two twin brothers are doing grade 10 this year and the last two siblings are in grade 7 and 5 respectively.
Phelisa wrote her grade 12 final examinations in 2008, with no glimpse of hope for furthering her schooling the following year. Her parents told her that they were not as yet financial stable to send her to higher learning institutions.
The life time changing opportunity for Phelisa came early this year with one phone call from Ms. Mesatywa of Sandi School who also serves as coordinator for school partnership (LSP Coordinator). Good news was that she passed her examinations very well with outstanding achievement in Science. Unbelievable enough was additional news from Stephen, principal of Berkhamstead that funds could swiftly be made available for Phelisa to register as a student at any South African University convenient to her.
As we speak, Phelisa is a first year B.Ed student at Walter Sisulu University majoring in Mathematics and Geography. She is performing very well academically. During recent visit of Stephen and Berkhamstead students at Sandi, the team also visited Phelisa at the university.
Mnceba JSS is one of the OVC Project schools in Ntabankulu Cluster in Lusikisiki District. Mnceba location is a deep rural area located about 30km from the rural town of Ntanbankulu in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Caregiver of the school decided to join the local community project called Gumpe with the aim of forming partnerships with Gumpe wowen and share the plight of the OVC in the school. Gumpe Community Project is a women’s progressive association funded by Department of Social Development and Department of Agriculture to cultivate the vegetable gardens and supply the needy people in the village and sell to others to sustain the project. The magnificent act by the Caregiver to associate herself with this project as the fellow woman of the land helped to attract their attention to the plight of the OVC at school. The Gumpe project adopted twenty five orphans at the time who benefit from the supply of their fresh vegetables, cooked food seven days of the week and holidays, organized school tours, Christmas clothes, school uniform, etc. until they receive their Foster Care Grant. Once these OVCs have been assisted another cohort of 25 learners from the same school is identified and assisted by Gumpe project.
Sandi High SchoolPhelisa Khalazana was doing grade 12 last year at Sandi High School which is twinned with a UK school called Berkhamstead High. She is the only girl in a family of six children from deep rural communities surrounding Sandi School, called Qandu location. At home they depend on subsistence farming and Government Social grants. To supplement limited resources available to their family, Phelisa’s father one of the victims of retrenchment from mines, sells fire wood by the road side and her mother spends most of her time sewing and selling clothes. Phelisa’s elderly brother passed grade 12 in 2007 and the parents could not afford to pay for his tertiary education and is still unemployed. Phelisa’s sibling two twin brothers are doing grade 10 this year and the last two siblings are in grade 7 and 5 respectively.
Phelisa wrote her grade 12 final examinations in 2008, with no glimpse of hope for furthering her schooling the following year. Her parents told her that they were not as yet financial stable to send her to higher learning institutions.
The life time changing opportunity for Phelisa came early this year with one phone call from Ms. Mesatywa of Sandi School who also serves as coordinator for school partnership (LSP Coordinator). Good news was that she passed her examinations very well with outstanding achievement in Science. Unbelievable enough was additional news from Stephen, principal of Berkhamstead that funds could swiftly be made available for Phelisa to register as a student at any South African University convenient to her.
As we speak, Phelisa is a first year B.Ed student at Walter Sisulu University majoring in Mathematics and Geography. She is performing very well academically. During recent visit of Stephen and Berkhamstead students at Sandi, the team also visited Phelisa at the university.
