Jan 2009
Mazinyane Preschool
With the sudden passing of our beloved teacher, Elizabeth Madaka in December, our principal, Luzile Khosa was faced with a tremendous amount of challenges. Not only did Luzile and Elizabeth work together, they were best friends for many years, and a huge loss. We met Luzile and Elizabeth the first time we went to the original preschool back in 1997. Luzile was faced with making the entire funeral and memorial arrangements during the Christmas season, and the daunting task of finding a relative to take care of the 2 children. Luzile also needed to find a replacement as the school year was to begin January 15 with an enrollment of 246. The decision was made to hire our trained tour guide,  Fanake Sibuyi as he is wonderful with children and eager to have a career opportunity. His goal is still to be a tour guide, but with the economic downturn, this is not an easy feat at the moment. Fanakie was present at the school on a daily bases just as a volunteer and he will add a strong positive male role model to the school. We are fortunate to have the caliber of staff that we have. They are all caring and it's all about the children.

Our enrollment has doubled since we opened in May 2002. The school was built for 120 children and we are severely overcrowded. We urgently need to build 2 more classrooms and upgrade the kitchen appliances to industrial appliances. Before we can do anything, we need to extend the fence, which will cost approximately CAD 2400.00. We are hoping to have this done by the end of May.

Jun 2009

We have just returned from our annual trip to South Africa. We arrived at the school on May 20 and were greeted by almost 250 children. We were thrilled to see that 90% of the fence extension had already been completed. The fence is huge! We were not aware of how much extra land had been donated to the school and did have to purchase a bit more fencing supplies to complete the project. The fence is approximately 200m x 100m and total cost for this extension was CAD3600.00.

We are so proud of the staff as they are 100% responsible for the day to day running of the school and are doing a fantastic job. All of the teachers are continuing to take Early Childhood Development courses offered to them by the provincial education department. The teachers have even initiated an after school English language course for any adults from the community that want to learn to speak English.

The province of Mpumalanga has taken over our food program, which is a welcome relief. They are supplying a nutritious breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack on a daily basis. With these savings, we were able to provide the staff of 9 a healthy wage increase for the year. This raise brought all staff at least to minimum wage or better.

The school is definitely overcrowded and we are eager to get the 2 classrooms built. While we were at the school we interviewed and hired a local contractor for the expansion. We are anticipating the expansion to be completed by mid September at a cost of approximately CAD17000.00. This is for construction only and does not include any classroom or playground equipment. 

Our septic is still giving us some problems, as it just wasn’t built for this number of kids. Sabi Sabi is trying to solve this problem for us, as it could be a costly one!

We also had 1 more cafeteria table and 2 benches built which now give us a total of 4 tables and seating for 80 kids. Because of the size of the room the kids eat in shifts.

Our principal, Luzile Khosa has managed to organize volunteers from the village to come and help out in the kitchen. With cooking for 250 kids every day, the kitchen is definitely a busy room. Our 4-burner stove is overworked and we were hoping to find a 6 burner electric stove. After spending 2 days looking for one, we had to give that idea up as we could only find 6 burner gas stoves. We think that the solution is to purchase a 4 burner electric cook top to supplement the existing stove. We do need to find out if our electric circuit can accommodate another 240V appliance before we go ahead with this plan. The kitchen will need to be renovated slightly to accommodate the cook top, but hopefully this will solve the problem.

Since December 2008, the Rand has increased by about 20% against the Canadian dollar which always makes it hard when we have so many projects to complete.

Kwa Zulu Natal
Sunshine Preschool Project
This project has been a huge challenge for all. Due to the fact that the community is quite remote and there are no major building supply companies in the vicinity, it has been decided that the only solution is to purchase prefabricated classrooms. KZN Wildlife has sourced an excellent company that can deliver these classrooms very quickly. Eskom, the local utilities company, has finally done their site inspection and the cost to hook up to the electric grid. Not including classroom or playground equipment, based on the rate of exchange as of Jun 01, cost will be CAD72000.00. We will have to see if we have any money left over for the classroom and playground equipment as we only have CAD75000.00 in funds for this project. According to KZN Wildlife, the project will be completed in Feb 2010.

As progress is made, we will update the website. 

Sep 09
Sabi Sabi sent in their maintenance crew and have fixed all our plumbing and septic problems, which had the potential to be a very expensive for us. We are so lucky to have Sabi Sabi assisting us with our maintenance issues. They have donated countless man-hours as well as supplying their equipment to solve these problems.

Oct 09
Sabi Sabi is now offering a village experience in Lillydale B to guests staying at their lodges. (Bush , Selati, Earth and Little Bush) We are thrilled they are including a visit to our preschool as part of the tour. A village tour has been a dream of ours for many years and we are so grateful to Sabi Sabi for all their efforts. The school will benefit financially from these tours as Sabi Sabi is donating 100% of the proceeds to the local community.

Nov 09
I have just returned from a very quick trip to South Africa. I was travelling with Joan Firkins, past District Governor of Rotary District 5020 as well as 4 other Rotarians,  Robert & Maria Buckley, Richard Calverley and Donna Blackstock. Joan was responsible for upgrading the elementary school in Lillydale B with electricity and running water, which was completed in August 2009.
My purpose of the trip was to ensure the 2 new classrooms were on track to be completed for the start of the new school year and to finally purchase a new industrial size stove. I purchased the stove at the cost of CAD1450.00. Sabi Sabi has kindly offered to assist with the installation, as the counter will need to be cut in size in order to accommodate the new stove. With feeding about 250 kids breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack, the kitchen is a busy place! The 2 new classrooms were about 50% completed and the contractor indicated another 18-21 days for completion. We still need to outfit the 2 new classrooms before the start of the new school year. (Jan 18)

I was very fortunate to have the Rotarians with me, as the cafeteria ceiling had collapsed in some areas and was causing much concern for the safety of the children and the teachers. The Rotarians took on this project and within 2 days had managed to fix the ceiling as well as repaint the cafeteria. A big thank you to the Rotarians for all their hard work and dedication.

Aside from outfitting the new classrooms, we need to purchase more playground equipment. It has been years since we purchased playground equipment and it is time to replace this. We also want to build a green house as the garden struggles during the very hot long summers.

Marianne Schaubeck & John Johnston