By Jenny Taylor | Chairperson - Edu Fun
Help Edu Fun empower 70 local youth to teach 3000 children to read in Diepsloot, South Africa.
Edu Fun’s mission is to improve English literacy. We teach learners in grades 2 & 3 at Diepsloot Combined School (DCS) in the informal settlement of Diepsloot, South Africa as well as in other rural and township communities.
The academic year has come to an end in South African schools and we recently celebrated 400 Grade 2 and 3 learners who learned how to read at Diepsloot Combined School in 2023.
These learners were all taught by local youth who were on a tutorship for a year and earned a monthly stipend while teaching reading in a small group or one-on-one setting on a daily basis. Some of the youth that we have trained over the last few years will continue to work on our programme in 2024 and several have decided to pursue a career in teaching. As a result, we are now trying to find bursaries or funding for these young teachers in training to cover their tuition fees as well as continue to pay them a stipend / allowance to cover their basic living expenses as well which will enable them to study and continue to teach reading in Diepsloot.
Diepsloot Combined School continues to be a centre of excellence for the teaching and training of the Phono-Graphix reading method. Teachers, volunteers and youth from other communities also congregate on a weekly basis to learn more about Phono-Graphix and then go back into their own communities to replicate the programme. As a result, approximately 1800 children are attending reading lessons on a weekly basis in several communities - both rural and township.
We are hoping to start expanding into more schools in Diepsloot to make a real difference in the Diepsloot community at large. There are 7 Primary Schools in Diepsloot and in a perfect world we would have 10 trained youth stationed at each of these schools each year. This would mean that we would reach over 400 kids at the 7 schools and teach the approximate 3000 Grade 2 & 3 learners in the whole of Diepsloot to read on an annual basis.
In reality, we need approximately US$ 160 000 per year to implement this where 70 youth would be gainfully employed and close on 3000 children would learn to read. This works out to only $50 per child per year.
Not only will this multiply our impact exponentially but imagine if every child in Diepsloot is able to read and understand what they are reading by the time they reach Grade 4.
This will start to change the narrative of the PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) results, where in the last 5 years there has been little progress in terms of the literacy results in South Africa where 80% of Grade 4 learners still cannot read for meaning.
American dollars go a long way in South Africa and you can convert this vision into a reality for as little as $ 50 per child per year!
Our wish list for 2024
1) Sponsor one child to learn to read in 2024
2) Sponsor 1 local youth to attend a Phono-Graphix Course
3) Provide a bursary for a passionate Phono-Graphix Tutor to pursue a career in teaching while continuing to teach reading at Diepsloot Combined School.
4) Provide the above bursary as well as a year's allowance to enable the tutor to earn a living while studying and teaching 40 children to read in their local community.
Links:
By Jenny Taylor | Chairperson
By Jenny Taylor | Project Leaders
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