We visited Sibongile Mtembu, who heads up an educare project in Mbuba village with support from educare NGO, Little Elephant Training Centre for Early Education (LETCEE). The creation of the Mbuba Village toy library is a Make Christmas Matter project this year. Senior writer, Jill Sloan shares Sibongile's story of how she and the family facilitators got involved in the project.

“We stood up and we said we have the love of the children.”

We meet Sibongile in the Mbuba community hall. Community leaders have identified this as the best site for the toy library which LETCEE plans to erect in this village. Sibongile co-ordinates the village’s early childhood development project, assisted by twelve family facilitators. The project reaches 120 families spread across the rural village. With a total village population of around 5,000 people, this project has regular contact with one in every ten households.

Village leaders

In 2008, LETCEE was approached by the local leadership of Mbuba village to provide support for community based early childhood development (ECD) activities. The project was christened Sikhulakahle, meaning, ‘We are growing well’. Sibongile describes how she and the family facilitators got involved in the project:

“The inkosi (tribal leader) and councillor (for the municipality) called a community meeting. LETCEE explained about this project at the meeting. We were asked to show if we were interested in this project. We stood up and we said we have the love of the children. Afterwards we were all interviewed by the leaders. I was chosen to coordinate. I am the person who is linking the community committee, LETCEE and the Family Facilitators.”

Children must play

Each family facilitator has been given a bag of toys by LETCEE. They use these toys to play with children when they go for home visits, also discussing with adults in the household how young children learn important skills though playing with educational toys. Each bag contains different toys, including cars, puzzles, tennis balls and skipping ropes, plastic animals, dolls and books. Every month, the Family Facilitators come together and swop their bags of toys. Sibongile explains how the project’s activities l are changing adults’ attitudes towards young children:

“People here like this project because we are making relationships with the children. Before, the parents and grandparents would tell the children to keep quiet and go away. Now they are understanding that the children must play and be happy.”

Supporting basic needs

The project does not restrict its work to early childhood development. Through their reach directly into the homes of the children they are working with, Family Facilitators have a unique opportunity to give support around other basic needs of pre-schoolers. In their contact with adult family members, they help complete applications for birth certificates and social grants and educate caretakers about the importance of vaccinations, hygiene and clean water.

The impact of HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS has had a severe impact on this community. Those adults of childbearing age who have not become ill as a result of HIV have left this small community to generate an income elsewhere. “We have many of the vulnerable and orphaned children and the children who stay with grannies who are not right (to look after young children),” Sibongile explains, going on to tell this story of a four-year old girl who had been very ill last year:

“When the mother went to check the child at the mobile clinic, she found the child was HIV positive. She could not understand the lessons they were teaching her at the hospital (about antiretrovirals for her child) so they said, ‘Come with another member of your family.’ But nobody could help her to go to the hospital. The community is too afraid… they are too afraid what will happen to them. Then the mother came to me to find help. We went to the hospital together. Her child is getting treatment (antiretrovirals) from last year. She was looking like a disabled child, not even walking; and now she is running, walking and everything.”

Unlocking resources

The project helps households to unlock resources they would not have been able to access on their own. Sibongile describes how the mobile clinic only visits Mbuba village one day a month. There is a hospital in Greytown, and there are even taxis that travel from Mbuba to Greytown at regular intervals. But it’s the cost of transport that prohibits access to the hospital:

“Another family facilitator went to visit one of the homes. There she found five children who had all been left at home. The mother had gone to work. The children all had diarrhoea. Some of them were just lying (down). They could not even move. The mother did not have the money for transport (to take them to the hospital). The family facilitator went to the school to report that thing. The ambulance came to fetch the children to take them to hospital.”

"Now the children can laugh and play"

Sibongile’s face lights up when we speak of what a toy library will mean to the two hundred preschoolers who will benefit. “My children will cry about those toys, they (will) like it so much,” she answers.

“We will be very happy if we can get a toy library here. Without the toys, the children are just sitting with nothing to do and not even playing with each other, just sitting around and staying alone. Now the children can laugh and play. The toys are letting the children have fun.”

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