It was January 2010 and I was starting my first year at high school. I was so excited for this new chapter in my life and yet so scared. Two days before the schools opened I got accepted at Thabane High School. The problem was that I had no school uniform. I knew that my family couldn't afford to buy it at that time.
The first day of high school was supposed to be one of the most exciting days in my life but it was not. I was wearing old grey trousers and a school t-shirt I got from one of my cousins. I was feeling sad the whole day. I was the only girl in class who didn't have school uniform and I felt like an outcast. I thought that the other learners were looking down on me, as a result, I spent the whole day without speaking to anyone in class.
When I got home after school, I remember looking at my grandmother and thinking to myself "I can't ask her to buy me school uniform, it would be selfish of me to ask her such." She tried her best to make ends meet and she took care of me, my sister and 3 other cousins with the little she had. Her only source of income was the government pension.
After feeling sorry for myself and my circumstances, I started to look around me. Many people were in a similar situation as me but I was fortunate enough to have cousins who gave me the clothes they had out-grown. I started to notice the children who only got clothes when it is Christmas, people who have to wash clothes and wait for them to dry before they could wear them because they didn’t have enough clothes. I started to notice learners who had no school uniform and would come to school with damaged clothes but they still showed up.
I started to notice the little things, like the fact that half of the learners would not come to school during casual days because they didn't have any clothes besides their school uniform. It was as if I had suddenly woken up.
After all my observations I had an idea. What if I could ask community members to donate their second-hand clothes to me and then I donate them to those who need clothes? I sold the idea to my classmates and we started collecting clothes from community members. We donated clothes to learners in my schools, the neighbouring schools, orphanages, the people who stay at the dumping site and before we knew it we were donating clothes to everyone who needs clothes in Kimberley.
We later registered this project as a Non-Profit Company and called it Clothes For Life. We partnered with a local university in order to wash the clothes and delivery them to those in need. We have been working with local social workers and the Department of Social Development to identify people who need clothes and donate clothes to them.
We have been doing this for the past 7 years and we have no form of financial funding, we are funding ourselves. Yes, there are difficult times but the reward we get after helping someone is priceless.
The turning point was not being able to donate clothes to people who need clothes. The turning point is allowing people to turn their lives around. It's giving them clothes that enable them to go to school or a job interview. It’s showing them that they matter and that someone cares about them.
The turning point is being able to mobilize a community not to burn or throw clothes away but rather to donate them to those in need. The turning point is being able to run an organization that enables people to turn their lives for the better.
As Clothes For Life, our turning point was when we realized that we are helping people to help themselves.