Missionvale Care Center & School

Tomorrow, February 13th, we all start volunteering.  (See my postings on Pendla Primary School and House of Resurrection Haven for the first two locations to which the CSB/SJU students will disperse.)

The third service option is located in Missionvale, one of the poorest townships around PE.  As described to us, Missionvale residents are still waiting for the newer (promised) government supplied housing. While they wait, they continue to live in corrugated iron or particleboard cottages and shacks.  For water, sixteen communal taps serve approximately 50,000 people.  Most children must first haul water before their school day starts.  One piece of good news is that the tap-provided water is clean, safe drinking water.

Our students will be volunteering at Missionvale Care Center.  The center is actually a complex, with several service areas through which our students will rotate:  nutrition feeding, home health visiting, a used clothing distribution, and an R-4 primary school.  This center looks really efficient.  It is run by an Irish nun named Sister Ethel who came to Missionvale Township in1988.  She started what today is Missionvale under a tree, by offering 'school' for the street children nearby.  From that beginning, this care center has grown.  Wondrous, really.

Nutrition packet for one.

That's not to say that they are lavish.  The center is is totally dependent on donations.  Few services are given out "for free."  For example for the nutrition program, each person served is to bring a glass, tin, or cardboard item to recycle in exchange.  After waiting in the sun (on benches) for possibly hours, they are given their daily portion - a half-loaf of bread, and a soup base that is reputably very nutritious.  (Sister Ethel thinks that it is better to give food that can be made and eaten at home as a family, than simply provide cooked food.)  The sight of a person's amount seems paltry to us, but they give thanks for what they receive.

Our students look like naturals...

Britt and New Friend

What is your name?