The Sunday News
Loveness Mpofu, Sunday News Reporter
SHOES to School Foundation in partnership with Scorpion Legal Services of South Africa, on Friday donated 70 pairs of shoes worth $1 050 to underprivileged children at Lockview Primary School in Bulawayo.
Lockview headmaster Mr Nelson Mutasa said 80 percent of the pupils attending the school were children of domestic workers whose salaries are not enough to cater for all the children’s needs.
He said most of the children do not have proper school shoes.
“We are very grateful for this donation because sometimes you would meet a child getting into the toilet while walking barefoot. Now when they get back to class they won’t feel different or less to other children who have school shoes. The next step is for the parents to support their children,” he said.
Mr Mutasa said the school was facing a lot of challenges which makes it difficult to fully adopt the new education curriculum.
He said: “We are seriously in need of assistance, which we don’t often get because people think that since we are located in the low density area then everything is fine. At the moment we have 15 classes that are sharing seven classrooms and we do not have a computer lab.
We also have two boreholes which have broken down and five hectares of land are lying idle because we have no inputs. We also don’t have teachers’ cottages to assist our teachers as most of them come from the western suburbs where they pay $2 per day for transport and sometimes they are late because they do not have control over public transport,” he said.
Mr Mike Moyo, the Shoes to School founder said his organisation started the initiative to help pupils in 2016.
“I once taught in rural areas and there was no time when I taught a full class. Most of the times it was either the child had bilharzia, pneumonia because of cold or they had cracks on the feet which had turned into an infection, disabling them to walk. I then realised that the source of all those problems was because they were coming to school barefooted. Also, of note, is that most of those children develop an inferiority complex whereby they perform poorly at school and can’t compete with other ‘A’ schools in their zone. So, this initiative seeks to address psychological issues and health hazards that stop children from accessing quality education.”
Scorpion Legal Services’ Legal Auditor and Projects Officer Ms Palesa Dwaba said: “When I was given the project of corporate social responsibility, I was looking for initiatives to work with in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana. So, I identified with Shoes to School initiative because I saw that they were supporting a good cause. This year we have bought 70 pairs to this school and we have pledged $2 870 for another school in Harare for next year.”
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