OUR BEGINNING

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Many of the children I first taught in South Africa came from nearby townships. 

Some lived in 1 room shacks, some didn’t have access to consistent electricity or water.

In 2014 I had a 3 year old girl in my class who had a medical condition and desperately needed glasses. It took a lot of work and persistence to get her family to take her to an optometrist. And then, when they finally did, they were turned away and told they had to find a different doctor because they couldn’t help her because of her condition. The family, for as long as they were at the school, didn’t try again.

The following school year I had a child who was in a bad taxi accident. (The taxi’s in South Africa are similar to 15 passenger vans known in America.) 

Thankfully he was physically fine, but others in the taxi were not and he was traumatized from the experience. However, there was no mental health resources easily available for him.

It was from getting to know these children, their families, and the circumstances around them, that the seeds of a dream was planted and I knew I wanted to do more than teach. I wanted to be a vessel that could bring hope and change on even the smallest scale to an individual.

In 2015 I started dating my now husband and we got married a year later. My husband is Tsonga and comes from a large family. The majority of them live in the township of Soshanguve and his parents live in a rural village in Zimbabwe called Chingele.

Chingele is a village that is fortunate to have a primary and secondary school as well as a medical clinic. However buildings alone are not enough. The schools are lacking in basic text books, stationary, and equipment. The clinic is not well stocked with needed materials and medicines. They even lack some simple medical equipment.

As I continued to live my life in South Africa, visited Zimbabwe, and got to know my in-laws, I began to wonder if there was a way I could connect with individuals, companies, medical personnel, etc., who would be willing to donate funds, materials, and assistance to communities such as these?

And these are some of the reasons why I wanted to start a non-profit organization and the Rihanyo Initiative was born.