Tanya Farber
PORTIA Nokuzola Benxa, surrounded by leaves of spinach, a gaggle of small children, and a ceiling decorated with teddy bears and colourful mobiles made from scrap, is a living monument to making much out of nothing.
More than 10 years ago, she began looking after a group of children in a small shack where there was no running water and no toilet.
“I remember going out every day before 7am to collect some water for the children,” she says.
Today, her Eluxolo Educare crèche in Asanda Village near Somerset West feels like a palace, but that is because she has used every square inch of its tiny interior to make it stimulating for the 25 children in her and her helper’s care.
Jeanine Andro, a trainer from early childhood development NGO Masikhule, which has given Benxa support, says, “There is a misperception that you can only teach the basics of colours, shapes, numbers, size, and position in space (like under, over, next to) once in Grade R. But you can actually start teaching them from birth onwards. With almost nothing, you can stimulate children’s minds and bodies through those basic concepts, and what you need is knowledge and ideas.”
With a palette of waste products in front of them, the women are learning how to teach children basic skills like cutting, drawing, colouring and threading.
For training participant Zolokazi Dyantyi, 23, attending an official course on early childhood development has not just made her aware of how children should eat, but of her own eating habits too. As a mother of a toddler, and as a caregiver at a crèche where she is in charge of 15 children from six months upwards, she has begun explaining to the parents the importance of healthy food for their children’s development.
“I was taking seven spoons of sugar,” she says, “and eating lots of junk food. But now I am learning about this and have already told the parents that they must give their small ones fruit instead of junk.”
Karen Bufé, a trainer at Masikhule, says a full tummy is often associated with health.
“Money is spent on fast food because it fills up a tummy, but a peanut butter sandwich and an apple cost less and are far better for children and adults too,” she says.
A challenge she cites for people in under-resourced communities is getting access to the right information.
“Some clinics are promoting the introduction of solids at a very young age,” she says, “as young as six weeks, in fact. So there is conflicting information out there and it is confusing for people.”
A key message, and a policy now defined by the government, is that breast-feeding is a fundamental building block for healthy children.
But, she says, “the information doesn’t filter down easily from the government to communities, but it is important for the message to get out there. Breast-feeding is free, extremely healthy, and an important part of development.”
While it was once discouraged for HIV positive women, the hugely successful prevention-of-mother-to-child-transmission programme rolled out by the government has put breast-feeding back on the top of the list of brilliant building blocks for a healthy child. And, while good nutrition is fundamental to quality early childhood development, it is part of a larger puzzle.
Léanne Keet, founding director of Masikhule, says their one project, Tyres to Tummies, has worked well in two playschools and on some farms in the area because of dedicated adults who see the benefit of growing one’s own food to feed children. Apart from the nutritional value, it is also stimulating for children to be involved in the life cycle of the plants.
“You need someone who is engaged with it and will plant every two weeks. If there is enough food to feed a group of children once a day, it has huge benefits,” she says, “and we encourage people to grow things that are really going to work in the environment in which they are staying.”
Dedication, it seems, is needed for all aspects of early childhood development in under-resourced areas.
But for someone like Muriel Xaki, who has transformed a humble house in Asanda Village into the thriving Sikuthale Preschool with a waiting list that fills up several pages, anything is possible if the passion is there. And part of that passion is a recognition of how important the early years are.
“In this room we have our fantasy area, our book area, and a filing area for teachers. We also have our creative play area,” she explains.
One might imagine it is a large classroom not different from what you’d see in the green lung suburbs of affluent Cape Town, but instead, it is a small room that she innovatively divided up and populated with all sorts of objects that are used in an educational way. And there are three other such rooms in the small house.
“Each learner pays R180 a month but sometimes parents don’t want to pay because money is always so tight around here,” she says.