Poor infrastructure at Lizo Nobanda Home from Home educare centre, at 38 Section, Harare, is now a thing of the past after the facility received a much-needed facelift.
On Thursday September 21, the organisation finally unveiled the newly renovated resource centre, which included a donated shipping container converted into a library, computer room, therapy room, children’s bathrooms and artificial grass laid on the children’s playground.
Home from Home, the organisation behind the revamp, has a network of small family homes and hopes that, with love, nurturing and stability, the children in their care will be able to overcome the odds.
The renovations started last year and took about two months to be completed, but the staff wanted everything in place before they officially launched it.
Megan Pringle, the fundraising officer for Home from Home, said they had been supporting the centre for years and wanted it to be a facility that provided quality teaching and an environment conducive to learning.
She said the computer room would be used by their older children based in Khayelitsha homes, and that tutoring workshops would take place there after school and over weekends.
Ms Pringle said that they were proud to be able to provide an educational facility of this calibre to the community of Khayelitsha.
She said the centres also worked with eight foster care homes in Khayelitsha, where they provided the children with guidance and mentorship.
Ms Pringle said the centres catered for children from 4 to 18 years, with about 44 currently attending the centre.
“We want to ensure that when children enter the primary school, they are well prepared and ready. We want to create great future leaders of tomorrow.
“All the children need to be afforded an opportunity to get a quality education. As much as we would love to take more children to come to the centre, we are unable to do so due to limited space,” she said.
She said it costs more than R400 000 to cover the centre’s operational costs.
School principal Thembeka Qubuda said she was grateful for the support and that the centre now offered the children a better environment to study in.
Ms Qubuda said that before the playground was renovated, it had been a sand pit which was not suitable for the children to play in.
Ms Qubuda said while, every year, they received many requests from parents who want their children to attend the centre, they have to turn many of them away because they have limited resources.
Parent, Nomalungelo Plaatjie, said her six children and grandchildren had attended the centre and she thanked the donors for their generosity.
