As always our registration for the thirty places available for the KG1 intake is over-subscribed, this year was no different. Hemed and Mr Faida, our P.T.A. Chairman, had the impossible task of choosing the most needy children along with Mr Sylvester our Head Teacher. The hopeful candidates sat a short entrance examination and out of seventy successful children the task of carrying out home visits to ensure the children met our strict criteria was completed in seven days, no mean feat by our staff.

Examination time for the KG1 candidates

Below are the profiles of two of the children who will be joining KG1 at SBM School in January 2016:
Isaac Khamisi Profile.
Issac Nov 2015

Isaac is a young boy of approximately four years old. He is the last born in a family of five children. He is a very confident and intelligent boy who scored 300 marks out of 300 marks in the KG 1 interview. He is a semi orphaned boy since his dad passed on after suffering HIV/ AIDs. Sadly his mother is also very ill and is unable to provide an acceptable level of care for the family. They have no bed to sleep on; instead they use an old torn mattress that was bought a long time ago and some sacks. Their house leaks and they are usually forced to congest themselves in the kitchen whenever it rains.

Issac's Home

Despite the illness his mother does manual work and sometimes hawks fruits and vegetables at the market in order to get the daily bread. The first born child is now in form three and he is benefiting from the government funds for an orphan which is used to cater for his school fees while the other children go to Mtepeni primary where classes can have up t0 60 pupils in a class. Isaac has a big smile despite all the challenges they undergo at home and will benefit immensely from a free education at St Bernadette Mary School.

Patience Furaha Profile

Patience Furaha

Patience is a young girl, who was born on 9th June, 2011. She is a brave girl who scored 295 out of 300 marks in the interview exam. She is an orphan who was born out of wedlock and is now under the care of an aunt. It was explained by her aunt that her mother died after a long duration of ailment and no one knows what the exact problem was. Patient’s aunt is the one who has been taking care of her ever since her mother passed away and in fact Patience refers her as her mum because she doesn’t know anything about her real mother and the aunt says she will only disclose this when she is old enough.

Patience's bedroom

The environment Patience live in is not conducive since the aunt is a single Mama and ekes a living by selling coconut wine. Whilst her aunt has four children of her own and the burden of looking after all the children is overwhelming her, she still tries to provide for the children but they live in abject poverty often going without meals. Accessing a free education at St Bernadette Mary’s School will transform Patience’s life and hopefully she will be successful in gaining good grades which will give her the chance to continue into further education when she is older.

The successful children

Without the generosity of our donor family who finance the school we would not be in the position to give these 350 children this wonderful opportunity to receive an excellent standard of education and to escape the poverty circle that is endemic in the area where the school is situated.