Creche – Saving Children’s Lives

This is one of many stories of how a Zimele Self-Help Groups are saving lives. This was really reassuring to see first hand that our prayers and financial support are making a difference in the community of Swaymani. Zimele is empowering the Zulu women of Swaymarni to think on their own and to solve challenges as a group.

In this particular case, the challenge was that the parents and grandparents had to work leaving children under 5 years of age in the care of not much older siblings. As a result, a great number of unattended children would often wander onto the road and be struck by oncoming cars and trucks. This particular Self-Help Group gathered together to solve this challenge. They decided that one of the members would take care of the children at her house while other members worked. They also decided to take turns baby-sitting. The safety of the young children was greatly improved and immediately the accidental deaths were greatly decreased. Additionally, soon word spread about the daycare quickly outgrew the one member’s house.

So with the savings from the Self-Help Group they decided to build a crèche and train one of the community women to become a teacher. However, another challenge arose. In order to improve the teacher teaching skills, the crèche needs government grants. However due to improper sanitation of the bathrooms as shown in the pictures, the crèche could not be registered by the government to receive the grant. Therefore the Self-Help Group with the help of Zimele and May 2009 USA team built a new toilet. So now the crèche has proper bathroom sanitation and can now be registered by the government to receive grants to improve the teaching skills of the teacher. This was a great and heartwarming case of how the Zimele Self-Help Groups are literally saving lives of children and giving them an opportunity to receive an education.