Through the work of Maranatha Care Children, our secondary project is Protea Primary, a school for traumatised children with behavioural related problems, from Grade R to Grade 7. They have formed a partnership with the Siyakatala Centre to allow new children to receive schooling there too. This makes it much easier to ensure that the new children who have recently arrived can also receive a formal education! Yet the school itself needs a lot of support to make their own vision a reality!
With our work at the Siyakatala Centre, we have been so fortunate that Protea have allowed new children to enrol into their classes free of charge (which we hope to continue to make possible!). And the teaching staff remain an inspiration; they supported one of our boys from the centre to fast track two grades and go from Grade 1 to Grade 5 within two years, allowing him to function on a mainstream curriculum at his new school and restoring all of his prospects for the future!
The school itself needs a lot of support to make their own vision a reality, and because of the support we receive from them, we want to help them where we can by supplying the school stationery they desperately need. This will allow the school to function at its best going through to 2013 and ensure that education is the one thing these children cannot have taken away in their lives!
Up to 60 children can receive education at the school, including a group from the centre which is situated just 4km away (making it a convenient partnership where the projects work closely together to ensure everyone's input is put forward in terms of the best interest of the young people we support). In acknowledging youth unemployment in South Africa and ideology that the youth of today become adults of tomorrow, it truly makes political and social sense to invest in education!
