Emergency Appeal: Secure Our Primary School

Hi everyone,

I have some news that I’ve been waiting a long time to share: We did it. Thanks to an incredible major donor and the collective kindness of all of you, our Primary School is finally safe. We successfully raised and spent 300,000 ZAR to install a full perimeter safety fence. For the first time in years, our 140 students can play, learn, and grow without the constant fear of intruders. It has completely transformed the energy of the school, and I cannot thank you enough for making this sanctuary a reality.

But today, my heart is at Siyakhula.

While the primary school is now a fortress of learning, our Siyakhula ECD center—home to 46 of our littlest learners (ages 2-5)—is still vulnerable. We’ve been through a heartbreaking cycle of break-ins. Thieves have stripped our metal cables and copper pipes, leading to floods that ruined our classrooms. It reached a point where we had to board up one of our rooms because it was simply too dangerous for the children.

Turning the Tide We aren't just sitting back, though! This past October, volunteers from TMF and Action Change helped us reclaim that flooded room. They spent a month scrubbing, painting, and restoring it into a beautiful new classroom. We’ve also been "outsmarting" the thieves by replacing every metal tap and handle with plastic—if it has no resale value, they don’t take it! We even built a heavy-duty internal steel cage to protect our fridges, food, and computers.

The "Trelli-door" Challenge To truly protect this progress, we need professional security. We invited Trelli-door, a leading security company here in South Africa, to visit us. They were so moved by our work that they’ve offered us a "miracle" quote. By using off-cuts and donated materials, they’ve dropped the price of securing the whole school from $14,650 down to just $5,500.

This is our next mountain to climb. Once Siyakhula is secure, we can finally move forward with our dream of turning the old classroom into an indoor/outdoor play space with astroturf and plants—a "wow" experience for children who often don’t have a safe place to play at home.

The Impact of Your Support Beyond the bricks and bars, your donations are feeding 186 children every single day across both schools. In December, we celebrated our first-ever Grade 7 graduation at the primary school—kids who have been with us for 10 years! We also had four of our Siyakhula "graduates" move over to start their journey at the primary school.

We still have four little ones from single-parent households waiting on scholarships to join us at Siyakhula for 2026. For $40 a month, you take a child off the street and put them into this bubble of hope and safety.

We’ve proven at the Primary School that when this community comes together, we can achieve the impossible. Let’s do the same for Siyakhula. Let’s get these doors locked tight so the learning never has to stop.

With love and hope,

Trina