Being involved in community projects has always been one of my passions and I believe that if everyone does their bit, we can make the world a better place. Especially when it comes to children, schools and education, community involvement is crucial.
Recent projects I was involved in included two schools with very similar profiles. They are both situated in poor communities and have a lot of children who depends on the school’s feeding scheme for something to eat each day.
What struck me was how different the schools looked. School A was neat and clean, the children was involved in fetching drinking water, looking after the vegetable garden that supplemented their kitchen and cleaning the classrooms.
School B who had running water and flushing toilets was not looked after. There were sweet wrappers, plastic bags and other litter lying on the school grounds and the classrooms were dusty with dirty floors. While we painted their classrooms I felt the urge to start cleaning. How on earth could learners concentrate in an environment like this. As I swept the floor I realised that the leaders and teachers of the school didn’t take pride in their environment and that they weren’t teaching the children to be proud and look after their school. We can clean and paint today, but will it even make a difference?
Unlike school A, where community projects and involvement will make a difference because they will take ownership of it, use it and even improve on it I don’t think we will make the impact we hoped for at School B.
Leaders of schools determine this culture of pride and responsibility and shouldn’t underestimate the impact they can have. I clearly saw this impact! The contrast intense, forcing me to ask the question, where does upliftment start?
You might want to read more about why we say plastic bags should be banned.
