About the founder(Tabisa Loliwe)
Tabisa born and bred in Mdantsane and raised by a strong single mother. A mother of two beautiful children ,son born in 2003 and daughter in 2008, the oldest of four daughters my older brother is late he died on my birthday in 1990 .
I grew up in a backward and illiterate environment where the past generation were farm herders that did not believe in taking a girl child to school. As a result I struggled to go to university but managed to attain a BA Social Science at the University of the Western Cape. I have extensive experience in Finance and have worked with major companies in Gauteng Province, South Africa. I left all the comfort of my career in the city of Gold to be a change agent in the lives of the children of the Eastern Cape, specifically living in the rural area of Tsholomnqa.
About the organization?
In 2016 I registered a Non Profit Organization called TeeLo Foundation. I have envisioned a good foundation for building one’s self esteem, sound educational environment for young children, would have lifetime benefits for our children and eventually improve their ability to achieve good Matric results. The belief system in our organization is to start them young, our long term plan is to have these kids believe that “Black child it is possible, you can dream further than matric certificate”.
What inspired you in starting the organization?
I have struggled during my school days, being raised by a single uneducated mother that would go for years without any job at times. I would be a laughing stock from my peers because I would sometimes go to school barefooted, wearing torn pre-loved school uniform. My strong personality played a huge role during these times because I would not allow any of that to stop me from going to school and being involved in any activities. All my career life in Johannesburg I felt like I owe children from similar backgrounds as mine that are struggling with low self-esteem. The continuous decline of our Matric results in the Eastern Cape Province also bothered me and I knew that with organization such as TeeLo this could change for the better.
How do you identify the children that are in need?
I get involved by visiting these schools. I interact with these children and the first thing I pick up is the low self esteem besides looking at torn shoes, old and discoloured school uniform .I guess with own personal experience it makes it easier to identify them.
What are your aspirations regarding your organization?
My wish is to have a Youth Development Centre and a Safe House for  children from Headed homes and Vulnerable children or a place based in Tsholomnqa assisting almost all the villages there, motivating and giving skills even for the unemployed plus drop outs. I am not going to stop until I achieve my goal and with all the programs that we have done as an organization since 2016 I know it is possible.
How do you profile your beneficiaries
We are specifically working with orphans, children from child-headed homes ,Vulnerable and deprived children and we usually get the information from the school administration. We do house visits so we can assess the situation at home and assist where we can. This is where we saw ourselves getting involved with different stakeholders like Department of Home Affairs and Social development.
Programs:
- Back to School campaign (Keep a child in school)-we make sure children wear school uniform so they look the same in class
- To reduce embarrassment and dread
- To reduce the burden
- To increase the number of learners in schools in the rural areas
- Reduce negative feelings that impact on concentration and performance
2. Oral Reading lessons that also contributes in building self esteem as we teach children to read loud in front of a class. It became imperative to start lessons on Oral reading and story telling for foundation phase. The benefits are, builds connection between spoken and written words, increase attention span ,provides a safe way of exploring strong emotions. While acquiring language helps develop vocabulary ,fluent silent reading skills and boost confidence . Then children can learn at their own page and will not be intimidated when they see any reading material.
3. Academic :Towards the end of the year, first week of Term 4 learners are presented with badges for most improved ,best performing, most promising in education, most responsible ,neatness and sports awards. It goes without saying that these awards are aimed at motivating, inspiring them to do more and better and instilling discipline and encourage break barriers and beyond what their circumstances might suggest.
We also get involved in some projects that aim at protecting these children especially when they are at school. I have uploaded a video of one of the schools that I am working with in Tsholomnqa. This is a primary school that take children from as young as 5 years old (grade R) but their toilets are almost 200 meters away from school and they have no fencing and they are in the middle of a sport ground where it looks like a public toilet.
