Durban - Touched by the plight of children unable to write their matric exams or benefit from social grants because they did not have ID documents, a Durban-born student is using cupcakes to ensure that the government acknowledges their existence.
Patrice Madurai, a former pupil of St Henry’s Marist College who is now studying at the University of Cape Town, has travelled South Africa, talking schools into selling cupcakes to raise funds to help people cover the cost of acquiring an ID document.
She recently extended her project, called The Cupcake ReSolution, to schools in Umlazi.
Madurai has been working with the Durban Youth Council to get the provincial Home Affairs Department to send a mobile unit to schools in the area to make the process of applying for an ID document easier.
The Youth Council comprises 120 Grade 11 pupils from 40 Durban high schools, which have pitched in with the fund-raising by holding civvies days and bake sales.
Madurai and council representatives visited four Umlazi primary schools, as well as a children’s home in Mayville, where they distributed 1 698 cupcakes.
“That’s 1 698 lives valued and celebrated! Many children are growing up without the childhood pleasure of singing happy birthday, making a wish, blowing out a candle, and having a piece of their very own birthday cake,” she explained.
Madurai was inspired to start The Cupcake ReSolution when working part-time in the Eastern Cape.
“I became acutely aware that many people, especially children, are not registered. What this means is that they do not have any form of identification and thus do not qualify for social grants, can’t register to write their matric exams, and eventually they can’t qualify for permanent and formal employment. This traps them in a cycle of poverty and gross social injustice,” Madurai said.
“The reality is that the government will never be able to provide for them if they don’t acknowledge their existence.”
The Mercury