An important part of the sponsorship in Zulufadder is a new school uniform every year.
We have our own sewing studio that sews school uniforms. Dresses and skirts for the girls, trousers for the boys. We buy shirts, jerseys, socks and shoes from manufacturers in Durban. We start in August the year before so that we can gve out around 800 individually packaged school uniforms in early January each year.
We start packing the moment we finish the Christmas gifts in December. Logistics are important here! Was it a boy or a girl? Size? Is she in high school? Then she wears a skirt and shirt, not a dress. Keep our tongues straight in our mouths, find all the right things in our little storeroom.
And then we go out to all the six areas we work in. A new area every day. We meet them in halls, outside schools, under trees. The children are afraid that they have to go to school in the same old uniform as last year and have come in numbers. They nod and smile as they check that everything is correct in their bag.
Something that is still completely incomprehensible to us is how they manage to be so clean, pretty and fresh looking EVERY DAY when the uniform is washed in a tub of cold water and the iron is heated over the fire.
Thank you very much for being a sponsor and allowing us to give out new uniforms every year!