Pinocchio Crèche Cape Town, South Africa
Maggie Shongwe with the children at the Pinocchio Crèche |
The Pinocchio Crèche was proposed to us as a project for the Children's Rights Working Group by Professor Noah Novogrodsky. Professor Novogrodsky negotiated a lease for the Pinocchio Crèche in a former municipal lawn bowling club during his International Human Rights Fellowship for the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust in Cape Town. The Pinocchio Crèche developed out of the Domestic Workers Association twenty-two years ago. Maggie Shongwe, a domestic worker from the age of nine, created the crèche to address the needs of working parents and their children. The crèche currently has space for up to forty children between 10 months and 5 years of age, and continues to be run by Maggie, her daughter Helen, and one other caregiver.
The Pinocchio Crèche is significant in international human rights terms for its ability to provide a safe haven and educational preparation to disadvantaged children whose parents commute from the townships into the Green Point and Sea Point areas of Cape Town for work. The children of the Pinocchio Crèche are given a chance at a brighter future by entering into schools in the Green Point area where they have a 64% chance of meeting grade level requirements, as opposed to the 2% chance they would have had remaining in the township schools.
Since September 2005, Professor Novogrodsky has supervised our work for the Children's Rights Working Group and has continued to supervise our summer internships in Cape Town. With the eight other law student members and the three Rotman MBA student members of the Working Group, we spent the 2005-2006 school year developing a business plan for the Pinocchio Crèche, nominating Helen Shongwe for the Reebok Human Rights Award, and hosting a Wine & Cheese fundraising event at the University of Toronto Early Learning Centre. We also made several important and supportive contacts, which include childcare specialists in Toronto and Shearman & Sterling LLP in New York. The latter's involvement is focused primarily on lobbying FIFA for corporate funding in light of the World Cup 2010 being held in South Africa. We arrived in Cape Town at the beginning of July equipped to hit the ground running: we had funds, a skeleton business plan, and a template of Early Childhood Development policies. However, we quickly learned that international human rights work is never a hundred metre dash, and within a few days we encountered the challenges of delay, of miscommunication, and of negotiating values and priorities.
Maggie has a huge heart and a beautiful vision for the future of the Pinocchio Crèche; however, the challenge has been in helping her appreciate the steps necessary to achieve that vision. Since the beginning, our mandate has been to ensure the sustainability of this important social service. Moving towards the future sustainability of the crèche requires a legal foundation, an administrative infrastructure, and financial accountability. We have made a great deal of progress in the past few weeks towards negotiating a shared vision of the Pinocchio Crèche's future development. Our first few steps have included: (i) researching South Africa's children's rights legislation and guidelines for childcare centres; (ii) collecting information about both the crèche (operating budget, daily routine) and the enrolled families; (iii) writing a report on the current status of the crèche for the Ministry of Social Welfare, who monitors registered centres and considers requests for government subsidies; (iv) drafting a comprehensive policy manual and paperwork templates for the crèche; and (v) establishing an accountable financial structure and recruiting a volunteer bookkeeper.
With the funds raised in Canada at the Wine & Cheese event, we have purchased a much-needed outdoor play structure for the children. We have also enlisted Camps Bay High School students to paint an outdoor sign for the crèche to raise the community's awareness of its existence. The remainder of our internships in Cape Town will be spent furthering our sustainability efforts and fundraising prospects. The Children's Rights Working Group will continue to address these needs of the Pinocchio Crèche into the 2006-2007 school year, particularly through the development of a fundraising package to be sent to prospective donors in South Africa and internationally.
To round off our experience, we also volunteer at the Christine Revell Children's Home for children up to the age of five who have been abandoned, abused or orphaned by HIV/AIDS. One day a week, we take 2-3 children on an outing in Cape Town. Some of these children have not left the home in months. This week, we will also begin volunteering for Black Sash, a woman's resistance organisation formed during apartheid. This organisation has since reinvented itself to address the needs of the disadvantaged in the new South Africa by serving as a legal aid clinic. Much like our work at Downtown Legal Services in Toronto, we will have the opportunity to observe client interviews and assist with client management. To date, this has been a challenging and enriching experience. We could not have asked to spend this time in a more beautiful part of the world. South Africa has energized us with its vibrancy and intrigued us with its complications.
