MathaBane.com
Title
MATHABANE
Description
My name is Magdalene Mathabane, and Mark is my firstborn son. I'm very excited that he established a scholarship fund in my name that pays for books, school fees and uniforms for many, many impoverished children in Alexandra, the township outside Johannesburg where I grew up and raised a family.
Mark named the fund after me because he knows how much I believe in the power of education to transform a person's life. When I was growing up in Alexandra in the 1940s, very few parents had the money to send their daughters to school. Like other girls, I never had a chance to finish even first grade. After my father left my mother for another woman, she struggled to raise four children on her own. At age 12, I went to work as a laundress for a very large family in Johannesburg. After I got married, it was very difficult for me to raise seven children under apartheid, especially since I did not know how to read or write. Now that my children are grown, I have enrolled in English classes and am now able to read my favorite book -- the Bible.
Though I never attended school, I've always believed strongly in the value of getting a good education. I believed, deep in my heart, that it would save my children's lives and would be their ticket out of the dead-end life of the ghetto. I struggled and sacrificed a great deal to make sure that Mark and his younger siblings had the opportunity to go to school. My husband beat me for spending food money on the children's books and school uniforms, but I remained determined.
Languages
English
