Montessori school helps informal dwelling residents cope
Learners from a Montessori school in Sandton recently visited one of the most underprivileged communities in Muldersdrift to see where they could help and to donate clothes and baby formula.
In a country as beautiful as South Africa the divide between communities is at times so big that it is hard to imagine how the other half lives.
The Year 7 learners from Buccleuch Montessori Preschool and Primary in Sandton visited the Absa camp on Sunset Drive, Muldersdrift on 26 June to hand over the donations that they had collected.
Once the children climbed out of the two mini-buses that brought them to the camp, they were asked how many of them had ever been in a squatter camp, and only one raised her hand.
The scene in front of them – hundreds of shacks built from any material the residents could get their hands on, with gravel roads and dirty children playing happily outside.
Bianca Grosset, who has been assisting camp residents from the start, took the children and their chaperones through the camp.
The children got to meet some of the moms in the camp and Bianca explained that an estimated 200 children under the age of five are living in the camp.
Residents have no electricity and have used the borehole that was on the property to make three water points. They have to walk to fill their buckets with water every day.
This was once a residential property that had two houses, a swimming pool and a borehole. The houses are now being used by residents and almost every room in the house has a family living in it.
Portable toilets can be found every hundred metres, but there are not nearly enough to accommodate the number of people living in the camp – a number that is increasing by the day.
The camp has a recycling operation where different plastics, metals and glass are separated into the correct piles before being taken to the recycling plant and sold.
Photos: Natasha Pretorius.
The living conditions in the camp are far below the bare necessities and survival is a struggle every day, but somehow they smiled when the kids started interacting with them.
The children from the school wanted to show the spirit of Ubuntu and wanted to help an underprivileged community.
They organised a big walk where they asked for money to be donated to buy baby formula for the moms in the camp.
The children also collected 20 bags filled with clothes and separated them according to age groups. These were handed over to the camp’s soup kitchen to give to those who need it the most.
The school plans on making this an ongoing initiative and to keep supporting the camp.
