Education East Africa Foundation

Salwa’s kindergarten

Salwa Abdelrahman started looking after toddlers and preschoolers in a poverty-stricken suburb in Khartoum in 2009. The little ones roamed the streets because their mothers were forced to go out to earn a meagre living   but were unable afford day care. Salwa built a thatched shelter in the courtyard of her mother’s house and started her kindergarten there.

In the first years, she ran the preschool which also offers a simple breakfast with money earned by selling household items and bedding, purchased from wholesalers. ‘Often, I was paid on instalments, because most mothers don’t earn enough to spend larger amounts at once. That’s how we help each other.’

Salwa has worked her whole life. During primary school, she sold seeds and peanuts as snacks to schoolmates. She paid for her university studies by selling self-adorned shawls. Later, she used the money she earned by selling the shawls, to further furnish the kindergarten.

‘Most of the little ones in the neighbourhood are at home or are out on the streets. Their mothers work as washers or cleaners for a daily wage and cannot afford the kindergartens further away,’ she explained in 2011, when she approached the foundation with a request for financial support.

Salwa grew up in the Nuba Mountains in what is now southern Sudan. When she was about five years old, she was assigned three goats to herd daily. Instead, she followed the example of her older sister, the only one of her six sisters to go to school. Her mother supported her and after months of wrangling with her father, he finally gave in, and she was also allowed to go to school.

In the mid-1990s, the violence of war in the Nuba Mountains forced the family to flee to Khartoum. After she finished secondary school, Salwa enrolled to study office management at university.

After her studies, she could not find a job and decided to do voluntary work. Many women in her neighbourhood, which is far outside the city centre, are illiterate. She not only taught them the basics of reading and writing, but also showed them how to use their mobile telephones. Many of them lost them when they had to turn to a passer-by to look up a phone number.

‘We have become a close-knit group over the years, twenty-five women who support each other through thick and thin,’ Salwa explained in 2022, a year before war would break out in the country. ‘If they need to get something done from the city council, they usually come to me. I like to help them.’

Even when asked about her dreams, she remains practical. ‘Sudan is doing so badly that many people can hardly afford to pay school fees. They now often send one or two of the eldest children to school. The rest stay at home or do odd jobs at the market. These children are in danger of falling between the cracks, because when they are more than seven years old, schools no longer accept them. I would love to open a class for them to offer them coaching.’

What drives her? ‘When I look at the people around me, I see myself reflected in them. When I was little, we had enough food. It became less after that, and less again in Khartoum. I still managed. So, I like to help others get by as well.’

Do you want to sponsor her? Under the motto ‘every little bit helps’, the foundation hopes to interest more monthly or one-off donors. So new donors who can spare a monthly or one-off amount are more than welcome!