School-Days shares the community spirit with Ingane Yami Children’s Village
“I don’t think I’d be alive without Ingane Yami.”
These are the words of Andile, a 13-year old boy who was the first child to join Ingane Yami Children’s Village at the age of six years old after being severely neglected as a young child.
Based in the Shongweni Valley in KZN, Ingane Yami Children’s Village is a permanent, loving home for orphaned and vulnerable children. The village is home to its own school, sports facilities and community hall. The 18 children at the village live in five houses, each with their own ‘mother’ who cares for the children and looks after the household, emulating a family home environment.
The staff at School-Days, a KZN-based education bursary platform, got into the Mandela Day spirit by creating customised packs of colouring books and crayons for each child at Ingane Yami. The following week, members from the School-Days team visited the facility to drop off the packs and find out more about the dynamics of this incredible village.
Patricia Deacon, Ingane Yami Marketing and Fundraising Manager, took the School-Days team around the village, explaining how it’s structured. “We want children to feel that they are no longer orphaned or abandoned,” she says, which is why each child is cared for in a house by a mother figure. Deacon says that “South Africa is not going to change” unless its children are given a safe and nurturing upbringing.
Ingane Yami’s goal is for the children in its care to “go back into the community as healthy, whole adults.” Leading by example, Andile is very excited to be going to Hillcrest High next year.
Deacon was grateful for School-Days’ assistance: “Thank you SO much the School-Days team for your visit and for dropping off the most amazing stationery packs for our kids! The effort and detail you put into personalising each one is amazing! We’ll be using these packs as part of our efforts towards building in more family time into our children’s schedules.”
School-Days now looks forward to deepening an ongoing relationship with Ingane Yami.
Speaking about the Mandela Day initiative and the School-Days platform, School-Days Managing Director Chris Nel says: “School-Days supports employee and corporate engagement that makes a positive impact on society. But, at School-Days, supporting South African families is not something we do only once a year. Our day-to-day work revolves around empowering all South Africans to build their own education bursaries to help pay towards their families’ school, college and university fees.”
Inspired? Here’s how you can get involved with Ingane Yami:
Volunteer your time at a Ingane Yami holiday club
Take part in various fundraising events held throughout the year
Host your own fundraiser in aid of the village
Sponsor a child
Visit https://www.inganeyami.com/ to find out more
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