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

After one of the worst storms in history, while the next storm rolled in, the children of Oceanview continued to walk through the mud and show up for school –... The post Even When the Streets Had Become Rivers, a Boy in a Red Tracksuit Still Showed Up for School appeared first on Good Things Guy.

May 18, 2026 - 07:13

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

After one of the worst storms in history, while the next storm rolled in, the children of Oceanview continued to walk through the mud and show up for school – backpacks on, eyes forward.

Jeffrey’s Bay, South Africa (18 May 2026) – Oceanview in Jeffrey’s Bay is a large low-income community on the outskirts of Jeffreys Bay. There are no tarred roads inside the informal part of the community. There is no stormwater infrastructure. When it rains, really rains, the settlement floods. Water comes up from the ground inside. Families wade through ankle-deep mud to reach the main road.

Children navigate rivers of brown water and electricity cables covered in mud on the ground, with their school bags held close. Gumboots on, school shoes in the backpack – they only come out once they get to school.

This is not a crisis. This is a Tuesday in Oceanview.

When the community was struck by the yet again this week, Maxie Kamalski, the Trust Administrator of Victory4All NPO, wore plastic shopping bags on her feet after the heavy rain had turned every pathway into a river of mud.

“My office is based here, in this community, so I know these streets well. I know the families. But nothing quite prepares you for seeing it like this – again,” she tells us.

However, what stopped Maxie in her tracks wasn’t the state of the roads, or the fallen poles, or the flooded doorways. It was a Grade 1 learner, standing in the middle of it all. In a red tracksuit, school backpack on, staring back at her with the most matter-of-fact expression she’s ever seen on a child.

He was going to school.

“For the children Victory4All serves, poverty is not an abstract concept or a statistic. It is the mud under their feet, the cold wind through a corrugated iron wall, the hunger that makes it hard to concentrate, the violence outside. And yet – they show up. Day after day, they show up,” Maxie says.

From the Mud to the Classroom

Those same children, from those same flooded streets, walk through the gates of King’s College in Jeffreys Bay. They sit down at desks. They raise their hands. They learn.

Victory4All is a registered Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) and Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) operating out of Jeffreys Bay and Humansdorp in the Eastern Cape. Its vision is straightforward and urgent: breaking the cycle of poverty through high-quality education and care.

The organisation operates across seven schools and programmes serving over 800 children daily.

“Noah’s Ark Preschool is our ECD centre. King’s College Primary and High School, our independent, low-fee, and when I say low fee, I mean R200 per month, private schools. Rainbow Centre, our school for learners with disabilities, the only one available to low and no-income families in our region. Rainbow Angels our partial care centre for children with severe disabilities.

“Rainbow Skill Centre, where youth with disabilities learn practical skills to become economically empowered. Soete Swaan is our own social enterprise bakery, employing 13 youth with disabilities baking over 3,000 stoopwafels a day. If you have eaten a stroopwafel at Seattle Coffee, you have eaten a stroopwafel made by our young people in our small bakery in Humansdorp. Lastly, our seven foster homes provide a place of belonging for children removed from their homes,” explains Maxie.

All of these places provide structured learning, pastoral care, and the kind of consistent, nurturing environment that children in under-resourced communities rarely have access to.

True to its name, Victory4All believes every child in the under-resourced communities of Jeffreys Bay and Humansdorp deserves what every child everywhere deserves: the chance to become who they are meant to be. The chance to dream.

“We don’t just want these children to survive their circumstances. We want them to outgrow them entirely,” Maxie says.

You Can Follow a Class

Victory4All has a Sponsor a Class programme, and it is one of the most personal ways you can invest in a child’s future. For as little as R600 per month (or any amount you choose above that) you sponsor a class.

“In return, you receive termly updates: photos, videos, and messages directly from your class. You don’t just donate and wonder. You follow a class. You watch them grow. You become part of their story.”

Your contribution funds the real, practical costs of running quality programmes: learning materials, care, meals, and the staff who show up every day – just like the children do.

The Mud Will Dry. The Education Lasts.

That little boy in Oceanview is going to be okay. Not because life is easy for him – it isn’t. But because there are people who believed in him enough to build something in his community, and because there are others who are willing to fund it.