Together with a small group, I was visiting one of our target areas and the kinder garden there. This is a very poor area and poor kinder garden. This specific kinder garden has no sponsors (but we are about to change that now) and none of the children there has sponsors as well.

The kinder garden mainly consists of one big room. The building is a very old brick building with obvious signs of lacking maintenance. The kinder garden is fenced in and locked, to prevent unwanted elements to enter. They don’t have any furnitures at all inside this big room, except for a number of plastic children chairs, that actually brighten up the entire room with their sharp colors. But the children far outnumber the chairs, there are maybe Chairs for 1/3 of the children. Next to this big room, there is one smaller room. There is no door between them, but there is an iron fence, almost prison like. In this small room, the youngest children, up to 2 years old are kept. You can see some of them sleeping on the floor, there are no beds, just a few blankets that are put on the concrete. When we arrive, the young ones are getting curious and they get together at the fence, looking at us from the other side, holding on to the fence.

As I go over to the fence, to show these small kids some attention, one of them, that is holding on to the fence, starts to cry. I reach out my arms, to see if he wants to come up. He immediately reaches out his arms and kind of jump into mine – and I lift him up, across the fence and carry him in my arms. I walk around, talk with the group, the staff and the older children in the bigger room. While doing this I keep carrying this little one in my arms. He puts his head to my shoulder and hold around my neck. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t speak – he is just very calm and quiet.

After a while, we had to leave and go on to our next project. The staff meets me and reach out for the little one in my arms, but he push them away and immediately starts screaming and cling on to me.

It is really hard to leave him behind, but what choice do I have! But, even if that young child doesn’t understand it yet, he got himself a sponsor that day. It is impossible to walk away and never turn back to him. I call him Ngiyabonga. It is zulu language and means “Thank you”.

Weather you join us on one of our trips and have your own experience like this or you just want to reach out for someone, a young child, to provide for it, help him/her get through some tough years ahead and give him/her a better chance in life – get in touch with us and we will guide you through. This is what we do and it is a pleasure to help you and to help another child in Zululand.

Phone: +47 91 24 25 26 – Mail: post@childrenofzululand.com