Schools that cater for children with special needs are often neglected but there were smiles all round when the Road Accident Fund (RAF) donated fully-equipped woodwork class to Khayelitsha Special Needs School on Mandela Day, which was commemorated last Thursday.
The class is equipped with everything they need to perform their wood work tasks and the RAF spent just over R500 000 on it.
RAF corporate social responsibility manager, Noluthando Mvabaza, said through the donation they wanted to encourage the pupils to use their hands to make things which could lead to a career in that field. But most importantly, she said, they wanted to provide the special tools that the schools needed to be able to give the pupils a quality education.
Explaining why they chose to help the school for pupils with special needs, she added: “When God takes something he replaces with another ability. I do not believe that people are disabled but I believe that they are differently-abled.
We have done donations in other schools and communities because we believe that we should be among those that advocate for change in our communities.”
Principal, Busiswe Velebayi said she was grateful for the donations which would help their pupils improve their academic performance and that it would enable the pupils to put art concepts into practice and nurture their creativity so that they could improve their learning abilities.
She said the donation would ensure that the pupils explore their skills so that they could be able to provide for their families.
“We never had the woodwork workshop class before. We taught only theory. I’m emotionally touched by this donation. I’m more than grateful for the donation.
“I urge other business and government entities to plough back. I want to see this workshop producing people that would take care of their families,” she said. Pupil, Bohlale Makwa, , said he was grateful for the woodwork class because it was difficult when classes focused only on theory and you didn’t get enough time to put what you learned into practice.