Smangele Tshabalala is a IMBE Enterprise Incubator success story. She opened Vulinqondo Ecd Centre in 2016 and is now a qualified early learning practitioner to 6 young children in Orange Farm, Gauteng. IMBE Enterprise Incubator’s support and investment of R18 000 helped her kickstart her own enterprise and will in turn unlock DSD funding. Here is her journey in her words...
Where I live in Orange Farm, poverty is a very real issue. When you look down the street, you can see young children scattered around, uncared for. I love children, so I thought, “Let me gather them and their mothers and start a daycare”. Fortunately I had already completed SmartStart training and I was confident that I could start a business that would create good leaders out of these children.
I had solid goals about this business when I started it in 2016. I wanted to help my community and its children, but I also wanted my own children to have bread on their table. IMBE Enterprise Incubator made that possible for at least a year when they offered my daycare Vulinqondo ECD Centre a stipend of R1000 each month.
I started the centre with nothing but a big dream and a small space in my home, but no expertise in running a business. IMBE funded important items such as tables and chairs, a first aid box, a fire extinguisher, blankets, an outdoor shelter, meal dishes, filing shelves, etc, giving the daycare the dignity it deserved and the children a better ECD experience.
My fees are cheap, so I knew that mothers who could not afford normal crèches would buy into it. But it wasn’t always easy. Some mothers would have nothing at all, so for the sake of the child I would meet them halfway and take their child in. I have also lost a few children to a lesser qualified competitor that charges R50 less than I do. But I can’t complain because I am very proud of the work I do with the little I’m exposed to. The fact that some mothers brought their children to my daycare when I didn’t even have chairs for them to sit on means so much to me.
The children that come from Vulinqondo ECD Centre are known to be school ready when they reach Grade R. Their teachers notice their good social and physical skills and when I go to schools to follow up on their progress I am always asked how I developed such responsible children who adjust so well to the school system.
Parents also always thank me when they notice that their child has learned something new. We stimulate children here. We engage with them with fun activities, we listen to what they have to say, we play with them, we come to their level.
And it’s not only children who are being challenged and changed here - even I have grown. I no longer procrastinate because I have learnt the art of “get up and do it!” I come up with creative ideas for the business and children’s activities when I’d always thought that I was never creative at all.
Plus I have become a totally different mother. I used to be very harsh to my own children, but now I no longer shout at them for being curious; instead I pay attention to what they have to say. I want a child to feel free to tell me anything that may be bothering them, so that I can protect them better when they are facing real trouble.
I am committed to make Vulinqondo ECD bigger and better!
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