Cape Town - When Thembisa Nkohla agreed to assist an NPO, the Centre for Early Childhood Development (CECD) for a day, little did she know that 16 years later she would be at the forefront of improving education and care for children from disadvantaged communities across the country.
The 43-year-old from Nyanga had suffered the fate of many graduates who sought employment.
“I completed my tourism course at a college and for more than a year finding a job in the industry turned out to be tough. A friend of mine who works at CECD informed me that they were preparing for a conference at her workplace.
“They needed someone to assist with advertising and other things, including goodie bags, and I availed myself.
That opened a door for me because they would call me every time they had events and I also had the opportunity to see the work done by ECD field workers. My love for children and passion for education took flame,” said Nkohla.
The CECD is based in Claremont but they also work across the country.
Nkohla moved from assisting the ECD community workers to becoming one of them as the NPO was impressed by her dedication.
She has assisted many ECD centre principals, owners and government bodies to maintain and deliver efficient childhood development services.
“I have come across many owners who are elderly and uneducated. They love children and want to see them being cared for in their communities but don’t know much about childhood development programmes.
“I want to see our black communities not look at ECD as a temporary babysitting job to make money. Let’s change that notion. There’s nothing that makes me as happy as investing in what you like, which is seeing the owners study and get a qualification. Our children deserve the best,” Nkohla said.
ECDs were among the sectors badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, so Nkohla was hard at work providing meals and personal protective equipment during this time.
She described 2020 as the most financially and emotionally draining year in her career.
“Many centres were calling for support, and we assisted where we could, and even went as far as not only providing hot nutritious meals for the centres but (for) communities, too.
I remember in Eastern Cape, health inspectors would visit facilities and where there are maybe 20 children, they would request only eight children remain and the rest should be let go.
This led to many people losing their jobs, but children were also losing out on education.
It pained me to think that those children at home who relied on going to school so that they could eat would suffer; hence, we went the extra mile to also feed communities,” said Nkohla.
The passionate field worker also helps centres to become registered so that they can get subsidies.
A census conducted last year revealed that more than 3 200 of the 4 896 centres in the province were unregistered and therefore not eligible for subsidies.
The challenge is that some owners of ECD centres cannot afford to pay the high registration fees, which means progress is slow in curbing the proliferation of illegal centres.
“We have found that the environments where these unregistered facilities are situated are sometimes unhealthy and not safe for children This includes the structures of the ECDs. My dream is to see decent centres that are well resourced and one day open many well-established centres in our communities and see teachers being paid decent salaries.”
Nkohla’s hard work was brought to the attention of the Cape Times by CECD director Professor Eric Atmore, who nominated her for our Big Friday Read feature this week.
Atmore said he had watched Nkohla growing over the years and remaining modest, keen to learn and respectful.
Today she is a mentor and like a mother to many.
“Thembisa often tells principals: ‘You must treat your job as your calling and then you do it for the love of children, not for the love of money.
Everything that you do, you must consider that you are not doing it for you, you are doing it for the community. You are making a difference.’ She leads by example and conducts her work with this ethos.
“Her impact across South Africa has been extraordinary. Each of these individuals in turn works with about 20 children and you can see that Thembisa has had a great impact on a significant number of people whose lives she has changed.
“While doing all of this, Thembisa has remained humble. It is young women such as Thembisa who live the Nelson Mandela legacy and who are making a difference.
“It is she who has answered the call of President Ramaphosa when he said ‘Thuma Mina’.”
Cape Times