Good Things · 6 hours ago

Even When the Streets Had Become Rivers, a Boy in a Red Tracksuit Still Showed up for School

When the streets of Oceanview turned to rivers of mud after another storm, a Grade 1 boy in a red tracksuit stood ready with his backpack on, waiting to walk to school. In this informal settlement outside Jeffrey's Bay, children navigate flooded pathways and fallen power lines not once in crisis, but on an ordinary Tuesday - gumboots on, school shoes saved for when they arrive. "For the children Victory4All serves, poverty is not an abstract concept or a statistic. It is the mud under their feet," says Maxie Kamalski, who works with the organization providing education to over 800 children across seven programs. The mud will dry by afternoon, but what these children carry with them - that stubborn insistence on showing up, on learning, on becoming - outlasts every storm.