Owner of Nokwandile Day Care Centre, Vuyiswa Ndaleni, opened up her day care to local parents for a parental skills and involvement workshop on Wednesday (28 July).
Owner of Nokwandile Day Care Centre, Vuyiswa Ndaleni, opened up her day care to local parents for a parental skills and involvement workshop on Wednesday (28 July).
The workshop – which was run by Thembela Magadla and Nomfundo Gongqa – was part of the Trading Live initiative.
“Abafumani uthando abantwana bethu ("our children don’t get love"), said Magadla in his introduction to his talk on children’s rights.
“Our children have the right to food, shelter, education but most importantly, the love of a parent.”
The talk, which had a strong emphasis on this kind of love, was aimed at the younger parents in an effort to educate them on how to care for their children.
Although the talk was received well by those in attendance, Ndaleni was concerned at the age range of the parents that attended the meeting.
“Only grannies were sitting here during the workshop,” she said.
“There is no problem with the older parents, the problem is with the school children that are parents.
They don’t want to stay with their children.
Children are left overnight, over weekends with no change of clothes, no extra food or anything for us to care for them. The parents turn off their phones and just disappear only for us to find they have ben partying in Port Elizabeth the whole weekend.”
The parental skills and involvement workshop, although very necessary, was held at a time at which most of the parents of the 75 children attending Nokwandile Day Care Centre were attending school.
“I think I’m going to arrange a big meeting for all the parents to attend this workshop but not during school time because most of the parents are still in school themselves,” said Ndaleni.
“This is not the only preschool that has to deal with this,” she added.
“Those parents don’t love their children, when they get their grants they do their hair, they buy fancy clothes but what about their children?”
Ndaleni’s sentiments echo those being taught during the Trading Live workshop.
“The first priority must be the child,” she said. “A child is not a burden so the parent must take responsibility when they have a child.
They need to know that the child has the right to food, shelter and the love they deserve.
People must be ready for all of this if they are going to have children.”
