Mr.Anthony Ihejerika - one of the Directors of the new creche
By Anneline Mathiba
A day-care centre for children with disabilities is set to open in Meyerton, Gauteng in June 2022.
The Weed and Seed Day Care Centre for Children with Disabilities will be a haven for children in the area south of Johannesburg.
Anthony Ihejerika, Petros Radebe, Sibusiso Dyonase, Anthony Almeida and Sharon Hobson are the directors of the centre, which will cater for children aged three to 14.
“There is no centre that is providing education, therapeutic support for children with severe to profound intellectual disabilities,” says Ihejerika (48).
Hobson (59) will be playing the supervisory role of providing food for the children in the day-care centre through the garden and farm on the premises.
She says, “Weed and Seed will not only be a day-care centre but a community farm with a garden to feed people and a skills development centre where it will be a sanctuary and crafts centre to teach skills like farming and gardening to the community at large.
“This garden and farm will be able to provide fresh vegetables and eggs three times a day and this will save money for the centre.
The produce from the garden and farm will also be sold to bring in funds into the company which is under the same umbrella Weed and Seed Farm Community Garden. The farm will be up and running by the end of [2021]. We will produce spinach, carrots, mealies, kale, radishes, lettuce and tomatoes first,” Hobson says.
Weed and Seed Farm Community Garden will not only provide for the day-care centre, according to Hobson, but will also feed orphanages around the Meyerton community and teach the orphanages how to grow their own food.
“I have got a great nephew who is autistic, so this is very close to my heart. We are striving for a village for humanity, where children are happy, functional and living their best lives. I just know that there are so many children without the faults of their parents [who] are basically living a lonely life and we don’t want that, she toldThisAbility.
Wadzani Kuseka (36) is interested in enrolling her eight-year-old daughter who has special needs. “I believe she will get proper attention and she will also be taught things I may not be teaching her from the teachers who are qualified enough to give special care and teaching to children like my daughter,” she says.
The owner of Kempton Park-based Special Moments Day Care Centre for Children with Disabilities, Sarika Bellaram (31), has words of encouragement for the directors of Weed and Seed. “If you don’t have a passion for dealing with children with special needs then your day care is not going to sustain or achieve its goals. So, the first thing is passion for helping children with special needs and making a difference in the community and trying to develop each learner that comes to your facility.”
With her experience from starting her centre in a room at her home in January 2017 with only one child, to having free-standing premises housing 50 children today, Bellaram says it has not been easy. “It takes a lot of teamwork, hard work and dedication with the staff you have. Finding a teacher for special needs is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but when you find the right teacher, your job becomes easier.”
Ihejerika says they have plans to engage with government departments [and] corporates for funding and sponsorship”, but as they are a self-funded start-up business, their day-care centre services will not be for free for the foreseeable future.
