All through the year, the small learners at Moyeni Pre-primary School, Athlone Park, learn about what the important life-values are. Term 1’s programme centred on “Kindness”. The second term highlighted “Respect”, and now, in Term 3, “Caring” is the theme. Explaining what every parent knows from hard experience, the principal, Natasha Lyle, described how 3 to 6-year-olds view life as revolving around themselves: “We are intentional about helping our learners discover the joy and satisfaction of being other-focused through mutual helping and sharing, empathy and so on.”
Natasha had heard of the work of The Domino Foundation’s Nutrition programme in providing high-protein sandwiches to underserved primary and high schools, and to churches and community centres in the Toti area. She was keen to involve her charges in caring for some of their peers who, if it were not for the daily delivery of peanut butter sandwiches Domino makes, would go through their school day on an empty tummy. She had explained to the Moyeni pre-schoolers how the sandwiches feed not only growing bodies but developing brains as well.
One of the South Coast Domino team, Mondli Mngadi, commented, “It was such a happy morning for us meeting Tash and her staff and receiving the school’s generous donation. We are always needing more bread, spread and peanut butter, and so this kind gift is much appreciated.” He should know as he is the man who pilots the Domino vehicle delivering around 1500 sandwiches each week to 17 establishments (it works out to something like 70 000 sandwiches) plus porridge to 31 ECD centres. Mondli said there are always opportunities for other pre-primaries to also be involved in what he called the #Domino Effect and to put caring into action. The Nutrition programme can be reached at nutritionsouth @ domino.org.za.
