The Mamelo Primary School Emergency Fund for Orphans
“We just cry inside because we don’t know what to do.”
The Mamelo Primary School was established to serve orphans and HIV-positive children who, due to stigma, were rejected by ordinary schools. The School’s Emergency Fund for Orphans gives teachers and the principal the ability to meet the basic needs of the school’s 210 orphaned students, whether it is buying a child shoes, a jacket in winter, or
medicine. In addition, the Fund will enable the school to expand their free lunch program to provide free breakfasts for children in need.
The teachers at Mamello Primary School are intensely dedicated to their students. They teach under conditions we cannot even imagine. Crowded classrooms. No desks. No heat in winter. No running water. Latrines out back.
But that’s not what upsets them.
What makes them cry inside are the students who come to school without coats in winter. The students who can’t learn because of stomach aches, from hunger. The students who keep getting sick, but have no money for medicine.
Makeletso Amelia Masoebe founded the school in 2007, to serve orphans and HIV-positive children stigmatized by regular schools. Now over 300 students from 14 villages learn there. 210 are orphans.
Students from the adjoining Phelisonang Handicapped Village also attend the school, in fully integrated classrooms.
Mamello Primary School provides the children with free lunches and a free K-7 education. Since we got involved, they’ve also been able to feed the poorest children free school breakfasts! For some students, the food they get at school is their only food for the day.
The orphans’ needs are great.
Sometimes a teacher will take money from her own tiny salary to buy a child shoes. Or Principal Makeletso will “borrow” money from the funds for books and classroom supplies to provide a winter coat for a child.
Last year, the school was given 4 pigs—2 males and 2 females. The children built the pigpen themselves. And every day they feed the pigs. Come Spring, they hope there will be piglets to sell. Maybe then there will be enough money for essentials.
But for now, the school needs our Emergency Fund.
That’s where you come in.
AIDS Orphan Care started an Emergency Fund for Orphans at the Mamello Primary School to allow teachers to meet an orphan’s immediate needs—clothing, shoes, winter coats, school supplies, and emergency food supplies.
Another need is health care. Principal Makeletso says, “We make sure that the children with HIV go to the doctor each and every month.” The school provides transportation. The government provides free HIV care and medicines. So the Emergency Fund for Orphans will cover other medicines, X-rays to diagnose tuberculosis, and hospitalization when needed.
The students at Mamello Primary School overcome great odds every day to attend school. And the teachers care for them like their own children.
With your help, they can do even more.