Education support for children in South Africa

We are celebrating the festive season here in South Africa and it is certainly a fantastic time to give!

With new children having already arrived this month and more coming in the New Year it is the time of year where SCHOOL is well and truly on the agenda!

New bags, pencil cases, uniforms and registration costs become the order of the time as we move into a new school year!

We have 6 children and young people moving on to new schools and educational establishments next year which of course has a lot of expenses in itself alone!

We are also expecting to have a further 6 new children that will need everything required to start school whilst staying with us!

But testament to our project are such amazing achievements as our longest serving child at the project being selected most recently as a school prefect...joining another of our girls in this achievement for this year! Proud moment!

This is of course at a time where famous South African comedian Trevor Noah has challenged people to donate money towards education in South Africa,,,! Please do take his word for the need and continue to support us in our work shaping leaders of tomorrow!

And to ALL of you as our followers, supporters and donors for the year…please have an incredible Christmas and happy New Year! You deserve it!

Links:

• Official Charity Website

I am writing this report at a time of great financial need for this project!

Previously I specified the high prevalence of abuse in South Africa and our role in addressing the backlogs of the children in order to achieve their potential,

As specified in the last report we have now admitted our youngest boy who is turning 3 this month. The need however continues and we are also letting in a further three siblings in need of care and protection which also includes a 3 year old girl and will need to cover all the scholastic expenses for them, 

I have also added options to this project as we can arrange assessments for new children also with the occupational therapist for approx £30 GBP or $40 USD and also have an arrangement with a suitable Early Child Development centre to accommodate our youngest children for approx £60 GBP or $80 USD a term,

It is also interesting to keep up with the educational developments in South Africa. They are introducing the language Kiswahili as a second additional language option in schools to help promote social cohesion amongst Africans. Kiswahili is a Bantu language with lexical and linguistic similarities with many African languages spoken on the continent.

It just reminded me that in spite of any negative scholastic statistics about South Africa the language abilities of the children here and at our centre is often very humbling. I have children staying here speaking, reading and writing Xhosa, English and Afrikaans of tri-fluency.

As is said in Xhosa - Ulwimi olunye alwanelanga tu – one language is never enough!

Also in terms of technological advancements, the Department of Education also highlighted the introduction of coding as a subject in schools. This is inclusive of allowing written instructions that a robot or computer program can read and then execute.

Such news also becomes exciting when children at our youth centre have already been exposed to robotics with a course that they attended using our computer room! With some of our youngsters currently in their last year of school finishing matric and others working on university level assignments you can see where this foundation of computer and internet literacy has helped a great deal in preparing them for their future careers.

However it is also with this that I can say that we are very much in need of new computers which of course we would love to find sponsors for.

We are working very hard and the results are starting to show however for every successful young person coming through our centre we know there are always new kids who we have to start from the beginning for and I am always very honest in saying that without funds we cannot achieve what they are deserving of,

Please support us if you can – every little helps and we are always transparent in letting you know that it all goes to the benefit of our young people and making brighter futures a reality!