When Zandi Nombila stops outside Hazendal Primary School in Athlone, Cape Town, excitable children flock around her minibus.
Two seven-year-old girls come running. “Sis Zandi, it’s our turn to sit next to you,” they yell.
Nombila loads her passengers and heads off to collect more children before ferrying them home to Gugulethu, Nyanga, Crossroads and Langa.
“This is my everyday life. When you work with kids you have to be patient and love them for who they are. I’m very strict with them, but they love me anyway,” said the 54-year-old. “They feel very safe with me.”
The mother of three is one of a new breed of scholar-transport drivers in the Western Cape who are changing perceptions about taxis as unsafe and unreliable.
She is one of about 1,000 graduates of the “Safe Travel to School” programme run by Childsafe and Discovery Insure. It teaches defensive and advanced driving, offers health screening such as eye tests, and uses telematics to monitor driver behaviour.
The programme rewards good driving with cash and a grand annual prize of a car.
Since the pilot project began in the Western Cape five years ago, its daily client base has grown to 16,000 school children, and no fatalities or major crashes have been recorded. Now there are plans to extend it to the Eastern Cape and Gauteng.
Professor Sebastian van As, head of trauma at Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town and chair of Childsafe, said road accidents were the leading killer of children.
“Going to and from school is their most dangerous journey, and the biggest risk factor for them to end up in hospital or die in road crashes,” he said.
The trigger for the programme was an accident in 2010 when taxi driver Jacob Humphreys overtook several cars and drove through a closed boom at a level crossing in Blackheath, Cape Town. Ten children were killed when a train hit his vehicle.
Going to and from school is their most dangerous journey
— Sebastian van As, chair of Childsafe
Safe Travel to School co-ordinator Marcella Naidoo said apart from the immediate benefits of the programme, the drivers were good role models for the future drivers they transported.
“By [us] encouraging the driver to be good, he or she is indirectly role-modelling to these kids who observe everything that happens in front of them.”
The programme also helped the self-esteem of participating drivers, who often felt overlooked and unloved.
“They appreciate that people take note of what they are doing,” said Naidoo.
Ruth Lewin, Discovery’s head of corporate sustainability, said the insurer had begun discussions with the transport department about expanding the programme.
“We know the project works, which is why we would like to expand to Gauteng, which is a transport node to other provinces, and border travel,” she said.
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