Special Needs Center of Lillydale

There lies in Lillydale a small Catholic church surrounded by two smaller buildings. This campus still conducts mass every Sunday, but if you were to visit during a weekday, you would encounter nearly sixty students, children and adults alike brought together by a shared stigma: they each have a special need.

The Special Needs Center of Lillydale was founded six years ago and is still operated by a petite and unassuming woman named Maggie. She and seven additional counselors/teachers operate a school for people in their community with physical and mental disabilities and those who are deaf.

The objective of the Special Needs Center is to teach their students life skills and basic education. The students have also taken up handi-crafts and beadwork—it sharpens coordination skills and offers them a means of bringing in a small income. (I am getting ahead of myself a bit here, but a sidenote that you may find meaningful: Pride & Purpose, the charity that I am volunteering with, will be opening a medical clinic in Lillydale at the end of October. During my visit to the Special Needs Center on Monday, it was decided to have the students construct beaded HIV ribbons to present to those in attendance of the opening ceremony—among them will be Richard Branson.)

The reach of the Special Needs Center goes beyond those that are enrolled there—Maggie and her colleagues also hope to educate the parents and families of the students about their condition. A wall in Maggie’s office is lined with numerous hand-written posters: some outline the causes of the special needs that her students have; others offer advice on how to rear their children. For in much of the continent, special needs are regarded as a curse. Most are outcasts. Maggie wants to turn that concept around.

Pride & Purpose, along with a few other neighboring lodges, funded the construction of a new Special Needs Center. It was meant to open in February, but has been delayed by completion of the electric system. We all know there are many ways to solve a problem, and fortunately, the center was built near the clinic that is being erected. Electricity can be supplied to the center through the same route as the clinic. The students and staff of the Special Needs Center will be celebrating their grand opening of the new facility at the end of the month as well.

Maggie, though small in stature, is a strong woman. One can see in her eyes what she endures—with the struggle of the delayed move to the new center and everyday challenges. She realizes, though, that she must carry on to help those that others won’t. The Special Needs Center currently has an enrollment of 56 students—the number of students will double once the center has relocated to the new facility.

Maggie perked up on Monday when I mentioned that kids in the States wanted to take up a pen-pal arrangement with other school children in South Africa. Letters can be mailed to:

Tshemba Hosi Disabled Center
PO Box 2042
Ximhungwa 1281
Mpumalanga, South Africa

Contact me if you would like a more formal pen-pal arrangement between the Special Needs Center and a school in the States.

POST-SCRIPT: I visited the Special Needs Center yesterday (October 10) and have come to find out that Maggie isn't even compensated for her role as director of the center--families just don't have enough money to cover tuition for the students. When asked how much she would like to receive as a monthy salary, her reply was R1000--about $150.