The last quarter of school is a fun one for matriculants as they are looking forward to their Matric Dance ceremonies. However, this may notbe the case for learners coming from underprivileged families.
This is because they may not be able to afford stylish clothes due to financial challenges at home. A self-employed, Ontefetse Thomas from Mokassa2 village in Taung, took to her hands to start an initiative to help learners like these.
She goes around asking for donations from people who may have dresses and tuxedos still in good condition to provide to learners in need. "I have always been a giver, every time I come across a person in need I would go out to look for help on social media on their behalf," she said.
Thomas wishes to see more people being part of this initiative to change the lives of the unfortunate around Taung. She said that she does not want this to be only helping learners with clothes for Matric Dance, but would love to see it grow to helping families with groceries and taking drug addicts from the streets.
Thomas understands that there are people who may take this as a way to score free clothes while not really in need. In avoiding such chance-takers she works very closely with schools that learners who allege to be deprived may have disclosed to attend, to do a thorough background check before she can proceed to give away clothes.
"I contact schools to verify if a particular learner is indeed in Matric . Another thing, teachers understand learners better than I do so they will know those really from disadvantaged families," Thomas explained.
She further mentioned that a lot of donations come from females. Therefore, she calls on males to also come on board to make donations for a boy child to benefit from the initiative, since this is not a "girl child" in need platform.
