Siphelele's story

Nurse and fellow missionary Jessie recently wrote this powerful testimony of a life being changed.  Char and I have a dream of sending over 200 kids back to school with partial scholarships and school fee assistance… would you like to help?  Education changes lives here in Swaziland.  And when school fees are as much in some cases as 3 months income-many children do not get to go…

 

 

Siphelele comes from a family of ten, living together in a small one-room house. The house is in such poor condition that their front door will not close. So they've replaced the door with a sheet of plastic to help ward off the cold and critters at night. Most days the meal that Siphelele and her siblings' receive at the Children's Cup CarePoint is the only meal for that day.

Siphelele's father was in a car crash many years ago injuring his legs and now walks slowly on homemade crutches. Her mom has a greatly underdeveloped mental capacity, but lovingly does what she can to take care of the kids.

The family's income comes from collecting empty glass beer bottles for seven cents per bottle. For a time, her father was bedridden fighting a bad case of tuberculosis. To help bring in money while their father was sick, Siphelele and her siblings were found running around town late into the afternoon collecting bottles that were lying around the bars. Having to skip school to search for empty beer bottles, they often missed their daily meal from the CarePoint.

As you can imagine, Siphelele's family does not have the money to pay her school fees. Yet, she is a bright child and her heart's dream is to attend school. In fact, when she grows up, she wants to be a teacher so she can help other children do well in school.

However, without someone sponsoring her school fees, Siphelele has no hope of seeing her dream come true.

School fees to Siphelele mean the difference between an opportunity to take steps out of a life of poverty or continuing the cycle of hopelessness, teenage pregnancy, greater risk of HIV contraction, and perpetuating another generation in the cycle of poverty.

Attending school gives her the opportunity for an education that can provide a good steady job.

For Siphelele, attending school makes all the difference in the world.