South Africa Sunday Times – December 6 2015

A mother, her daughter and the school that changes teens lives…

Inspiring partnership unites Limpopo pupils and Aids orphans through brave education initiative to banish Aids stigma.                                                                                            by JAN BORNMAN

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS: Sue-Ann Cook and her daughter Vhuhwavho Nevhungoni of Vhutshilo Mountain School in the Nzhelele Valley,Limpopo.  Pictures by DAYLIN PAUL

IF you didn’t’ know what to look out for, you might easily drive past the unassuming Vhutshilo Mountain School in the Nzhelele Valley in northern Limpopo. 

It is here that Sue-Ann Cook, 60, her 16-year-old daughter, Vhuhwavho Nevhungoni, and their family of support staff have managed to break down the stigma around HIV and Aids, get teenagers to stop defaulting on their medication and teach skills to older teens.

The school, incorporating a preschool and creche, has made a name for itself in the area as a place to learn English and, as a result, even kids who don’t have the virus are sent there by their paying parents, further breaking down the barriers that exist between the children who have HIV and those who don’t.

Since she started Vhutshilo Mountain School in 2002, Sue-Ann has seen it grow from a few children in her mobile home in the bush between a forestry company and a tea plantation to an ever-expanding building with different classes for different ages. 

She came to the Nzhelele valley, situated between Louis Trichardt and Thohoyandou in northern Limpopo, for a long weekend and fell in love with the area.  “I came here for a weekend and I never left,” she joked.

Jumping from one job to the other, she ended up helping out at a friend’s creche and it was there that the bug bit her.

She started her own creche in her mobile home in 2002 with only three children — one of
them” being Vhuhwavho, or Woo as she is also known.

Woo’s biological mother died when she was very young and she lived with her grandmother until she, too, died. When Woo was two years old she was brought to Sue-Ann’s creche, whose work had become known in the local community.

The two bonded and Sue-Ann adopted Woo, following the death of her grandmother.

I always reminded her she adopted me and not the other way around, Sue-Ann said.

Adopting Woo - who was a sickly, orphaned child - served as the perfect measure of what worked and didn’t work and didn’t work at the school over the years.

“I used my daughter as a barometer.  She would always tell me what worked and what didn’t work and that’s how we adapted what we did with the children,” she said.

Woo is HIV-positive and publicly disclosed her status when she was nine. As she grew older and more open about her HIV status, she began talking to other children and telling them about the importance of taking their medication. “Clinics started calling me in to talk to a few kids . . . and that’s how it all sort of started,” Woo said.

MOTIVATED: Vhuhwavho Nevhungoni, 16, studying for an upcoming geography exam. This HIV- positive teenager is an educational speaker on HIV issues at surrounding schools. 

Woo and Sue-Ann started a workshop for older children and teenagers to discuss the use of medication, sex education and defaulting on medication. “Every time someone wants me to talk at a school, I love it. I know this stuff, it’s my passion.

When I go there, I feel free. I’m letting other people know; I’m opening minds. It’s very nice knowing I’m helping people in my own community,” said Woo.

The land on which the school is built was donated to Sue-Ann by the local chief after floods in 2004 destroyed her mobile home—and the space had become too small anyway.

FUTURE LEADERS: Sue-Ann Cook with some of the communities youngsters at her budding school

As Sue-Ann’s school and the goals of the school grew, it started to include older children. “We went up to Grade Three; we battled for six years to become registered with the Department of Education. Eventually they said we had been registered — but would only be able to get the subsidy in two years,” said Sue-Ann. That’s when they reverted to operating as a preschool —only because they were unable to build classes and pay teacher salaries. “But my teachers are very keen to do it again.”

To achieve this, they would need the government subsidy and new classes to be built.

Yet, Sue-Ann said she was surprised to see how far the school had come. “I didn’t think of it as an NGO; I thought I would have one [creche] that would make some money,” she said. “Initially it wasn’t planned to be an NGO, but when we started getting children, especially the HIV-positive children, my thinking changed.” Her goal is a lasting legacy. “I won’t be around forever. I’m 60. I want to know that, when I leave, this place will still run and grow without me,” she said.