Is anyone actually helping the refugees?

Well, yes.

I got an email, yesterday in fact, from a friend who’s directly involved in helping them.
In her words:

“A teacher, Ahmed, at a refugee camp out at Youngfield decided he needed to help the kids in his refugee camp, to give them some form of education. He asked me to please get them a school blackboard so he could teach the kids who have all obviously been out of school for two months now, since the xenophobic attacks. The HRC are working closely with the Department of Education to resolve this, but still nothing.

Ahmed called me yesterday to tell me what a difference the first blackboard made to the children’s lives. It was just a simple one with a wooden easel (as there are no chairs or tables in the camps) made for R400 at the local hardware store. He also called to ask me if there was any chance of a second blackboard as the children are literally queuing up to be taught, but only a set amount can fit into the tent to be taught at a time. They want to get another teacher to teach in another tent at the same time to get some daily routine going for the kids.”

Before you say it, nope, blackboard paint on a wall won’t work. They’re in tents.

If this sounds like another sob story to you, I totally understand. We’re bombarded with sob stories all the time (particularly over email). What makes this difference for me is that it’s a friend of mine who’s actually buying and delivering the stuff herself. And I hear so many people saying that they’d love to help in some way, they just don’t know how.

Here’s a way. Someone (trustworthy) being proactive and ensuring that just because there’s a situation here, it doesn’t mean the kids should have to lose out on learning. Call me naive? Okay.

But if you’d like to help in any way, please drop me an email.