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Group hopes to build South African school
(by Sali McSherry - August 10, 2012)
Group hopes to build South African school
By SALI McSHERRY
Chagrin Falls-based Brick by Brick board member Ann Spataro was forced to recognize that her world was not “the world” during a mission trip to South Africa.
“While I take for granted clean drinking water and five spigots of water on just the first floor of my home,” she said, “I witnessed a community where one spigot served 250 families, many with multiple generations under the same hovel.”
As Ms. Spataro tossed out remnants of food she deemed inedible, she saw young people getting ready to go “dumpster diving” for their next meal and families waiting for hours in line in hopes of getting a bag of perishables that the grocery store could not sell.
The Rev. Mark Simone of the Federated Church in Chagrin Falls knows the story too well. He’s been on dozens of mission trips to South Africa. After returning from a trip in 2008, wife Kathy and Sue Steines began to believe they could be agents of change.
They created the nonprofit Brick by Brick last year to create and execute programs that will assist and enhance the lives of South African women and their families in a culture where women often are overlooked.
“It’s what happens when people see poverty beyond understanding and then realize that something, even if it is small, can and must be done to bring change,” Mr. Simone said.
Brick by Brick is partnering with the Human Dignity Center, part of the Jerusalem Ministries that tends to the mounting needs of people in impoverished Walmer Township of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. The goal, he said, “is to build a two-room school building in a community so impoverished and isolated they have no easy access to public education.”
It’s in the “notorious Area Q,” the poorest of the poor of townships created when disenfranchised people were resettled during the apartheid years when the intention was to separate the races.
In its current fundraising campaign, “Let’s Build a School,” the group hopes to raise $50,000, which will provide a new double classroom unit with electricity, water, desks, chairs, white boards and other supplies.
“We build and equip the school, and the Human Dignity Center will hire skilled teachers to educate the children,” Mr. Simone said.
Board member Jackie Zielke told a story of a mother who welcomed them to her home that was comprised of walls that formerly had been the sides of a beer distribution truck and a tin roof with holes. She noticed it was furnished with discarded furniture and had rooms separated by pieces of material.
Then she saw something else – a photograph of the woman, her husband and two young boys under a caption of “bless this house.”
“A school is desperately needed for the kids of Area Q to have any chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and ignorance that has been thrust upon them,” Mrs. Zielke said.
Mrs. Simone and Mrs. Steines of Chagrin Falls said they realized after working in Area Q that the investment of “care” was something that could continue through a nonprofit. “We are excited to partner with them for our first project: building on our vision of supporting women through entrepreneurship, health awareness and education.”
Instrumental in the group is Bentleyville board member John Bourisseau, who said he and his family spend $35 a month to help provide for school fees, a uniform and supplies for a young boy. Last year, he and his son returned to work at the Human Dignity Center and met the student they have supported who is now 19 and in college.
There’s hope for happy endings, Mr. Simone said, brick by brick.
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