We have been on the GlobalGiving Platform since June of 2017. In this time we have raised over $25 000 thanks to all of you who have contributed to the project over this period.
We initially aimed to raise $5000 and each time we have nearly reached our goal we have kept increasing the target! We have now decided to start another project with the same objective of improving literacy in Africa - one child at a time.
We are grateful for all the amazing support that you have given us over the last few years pre-Covid and during the tough lockdowns that we experienced in South Africa. We hope that you will continue to support the work that we do under this new project title at the following link: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/improving-literacy-in-africa/
Not only have you helped us to teach over 1000 children to read over the last 5 years, you have also enabled us to feed hundreds of families, provide school uniforms as well as health checks to those in need.
Our next project that we are working towards and raising funds for is Holiday Budder Reader programme for 120 children that is taking place at the end of this month. The programme will mainly be run by a group of youth who have just completed their training as Phono-Graphix Reading Tutors. Whilst our focus is always on literacy, the aim is for the children to be exposed to other activities too and participate in Art, Dance and Sports activities as well as reading.
You can find out more about the programme on our Edu Fun website at https://edufunsa.co.za/index.php/special-events
Edu Fun partners with Diepsloot Combined School (DCS) located in an economically disadvantaged informal settlement north of Johannesburg as well as other communities in the Alexandra Township, Rosettenville and rural Wakkerstroom.
Edu Fun is a volunteer led organisation and our mission is to improve English Literacy for Grade 2 and 3 learners at Diepsloot Combined School. English Literacy is essential for young learners to break the cycle of poverty, but we are also conscious that children need their basic needs met to be able to concentrate on their schoolwork as they won’t reach their full potential if they do not have a balanced diet, a school uniform, or their basic health in place. We therefore have partner projects that were created by Edu Fun volunteers who saw a need and took action to provide supplementary support to remove some of these barriers to education.
Whilst working with volunteers obviously keeps one’s costs down, the reality in challenging times, is that volunteers also have their personal crises and struggles and often have to prioritise their own families, jobs, health etc. which results in interruptions to all our programmes – especially over the last 2 years. Young children cannot afford to have a break in their learning or not have their basic needs met, however due to Covid-19 this has been the norm rather than the exception.
The pandemic has forced us to think differently and to re-imagine our delivery and we are confident that we have a winning formula and are excited that our alternative model, which has been tried and tested in 2021 will result in up to 400 Grade 2 and 3 learners receiving one-on-one or small group instruction when learning how to read in English during 2022.
We can no longer rely 100% on volunteers and therefore need funding to be able to contract unemployed youth to work on the project daily who will, in return learn a skill, earn a small stipend to be able to provide food for their families, prepare themselves for employment, and possibly save some money for their future studies.
THE Project and Potential Solution
Due to our collaboration with Yoga4Alex in 2021, a group of unemployed youth were seconded to our project and spent 2 days a week teaching reading in Diepsloot. Yoga4Alex had the huge investment of weekly transport fees whilst Edu Fun and Read for Africa conducted on-site training and mentoring in the Phono-Graphix Reading method and project management at no charge which turned out to be a win-win for both communities as these tutors were then able to replicate the project in their own communities.
We achieved very positive and encouraging results with an overal improvement of 438%. Our Grade 3 learners have made great progress during 2021 having had little to no schooling for the whole of 2020 and then only attending school 50% of the time in 2021 due to large classes needing to be split because of social distancing.
The overall results are in the first image.
The youth who were teaching reading earned a stipend while working towards their certification as Phono-Graphix Reading Therapists. The programme provided financial relief for unemployed youth, provided them with a skill that has resulted in over 400 children having regular literacy instruction on a weekly basis and they have also started to build up their own private clients with the intention of starting their own businesses teaching reading so that they can continue to earn an income in the new year as their one-year contract as community workers draws to an end.
This project came at a huge cost not only in terms of financial resources but also individual human resources where Edu Fun, Read for Africa and Yoga4Alex did whatever they could with what they had to ensure that the organisations’ common goal of improved Literacy in Diepsloot and Alexandra were met. Everyone pooled all their limited resources together and whilst the project was a success it is NOT sustainable or replicable without more funding and assistance.
We are now looking into how we can expand and further develop our current Covid adaptations to become a key model for all our projects where we rely more on local youth to teach reading daily rather than a weekly and sometimes adhoc volunteer programme.
This is obviously not something that we have had to budget for in the past due to being a 100% volunteer led.
We have received some funding to contract 10 local unemployed youth from Diepsloot to avoid paying high transport costs and to have the group working with children daily. However, we would ultimately like a team of 20 youth to be trained and received a stipend in order for us to reach more students.
2 youth will also be assigned to each of our partner projects to ensure that any child who needs a school uniform (used, mended or new), has health concerns such as poor eyesight, needs additional nutrition or other support receives it. The youth will therefore be an extension of our usual project co-ordinators / volunteers who are not able to come into Diepsloot as regularly but will provide a mentoring role to assist the youth in learning invaluable project management, budgeting, stock taking, marketing skills parallel to becoming Phono-Graphix reading therapists as they endeavour to become social entrepreneurs and continue to earn an income beyond this project.
We are still hopeful that some of our volunteers will return in 2022 and attend more regularly (virtually and/or Face2Face) to support this programme and teach reading as well as mentor some of the youth who we will be working with.
The cost per tutor in terms of their training as well as their monthly stipend over 9 months is approximately R33 000 for the year. ($2200 per tutor for the year which works out to less than $200 dollars per tutor per month which includes all their training, materials and stipend)
The long-term goal is to replicate the model in other schools in Diepsloot to keep producing smiles like the ones in the photos provided and to celebrate hundreds of children’s’ achievements at the end of each year.
We also want to keep training a new group of youth each year to multiply our impact and to create jobs for more and more youth who will continue to teach reading for years to come.
Links:
Edu Fun partners with Diepsloot Combined School (DCS) located in an economically disadvantaged informal settlement north of Johannesburg as well as other communities in the Alexandra Township, Rosettenville and rural Wakkerstroom.
Edu Fun is a 100% volunteer led organisation that relies heavily on volunteers going into schools and teaching reading Face2Face, but has started to offer online interventions as well during Covid.
Despite Covid and the inability of our usual volunteers to have regular and personal contact with the learners we have managed to train locally based youth who have continued our programmes in these communities with very positive and encouraging results. Our Grade 3 learners have made great progress during 2021 having had little to no schooling for the whole of 2020 and then only attending school 50% of the time in 2021 due to large classes needing to be split because of social distancing.
This year we have been very fortunate to have worked in collaboration with Yoga4Alex who facilitated a group of unemployed youth spending 2 days a week teaching reading in Diepsloot. Yoga4Alex had the huge investment of paying for the weekly transport fees whilst Edu Fun arranged for Read for Africa to conduct free on-site training in the Phono-Graphix Reading method which turned out to be a win-win for both communities.
The youth who have been teaching reading have earned a small stipend while working towards their certification as Phono-Graphix Reading Therapists. The programme has provided financial relief for unemployed youth, provided them with a skill that has resulted in over 600 children having regular literacy instruction on a weekly basis and they have also started to build up their own private clients to teach reading with the intention of starting their own businesses teaching reading so that they can continue to earn an income once this project drawers to an end.
We are now looking into how we can expand and further develop our current Covid adaptions to become a key model within all our projects where we rely more on local youth to teach reading on a daily basis rather than a weekly and sometime adhoc volunteer programme.
Whilst working with volunteers obviously keeps ones’ costs down, the reality in challenging times, is that volunteers have their own crises and struggles and have to prioritise their own families, jobs etc. which results in interruptions to our programme. Young children cannot afford to have any breaks in their learning, however due to Covid this has been the norm rather than the exception.
Even though lock down restrictions have eased in South Africa there is always the threat of a fourth wave and our volunteer programmes will take months if not years to get the same level of hands on and face2face support.
This has forced us to think differently and to continue to re-imagine our delivery.
We are therefore hoping to replicate this model in 2022, in Diepsloot, but employ local unemployed youth to avoid paying high transport costs and to have the group working with Grade 2 and 3 children on a daily basis.
We aim to contract 10 local youth but do not have sufficient funds to pay stipends to the yourh to enable them to commit to the programme and attend every day,
We estimate the cost of the entire project to be R540 000 ($37 000) for the whole of 2022.
This equates to R45 000 ($3000) per month and will reach up to 600 Grade 2 and 3 learners on two sites. This is only R75 ($5) per learner per month or R900 ($45) per learner per year.
The above costs will include
The long-term goal is to replicate the project in other schools and keep training a new group of youth each year to multiply our impact.
Your continued support of Edu Fun and the work that we do is greatly appreciated.
Links:
Whilst Edu Fun's primary focus continues to be teaching Grade 2 and 3 children to read using the Phono-Graphix Reading Method, we are reminded daily that children cannot perform well at school if they do not have their basic needs of food and clothing met as well. As a result, we are often called on to support the learners in a variety of ways over and above the weekly literacy lessons that we provide.
We were therefore delighted when we discovered that the GlobalGiving platform provides the opportunity for supporters to start their own fundraisers within the main project and that one of our previous Edu Fun volunteers started such a fundraiser to purchase school uniforms.
Edu Fun would like to extend our sincerest thanks to Pilar Ruiz for her efforts to raise funds for school uniforms at Diepsloot Combined School and to all of you who have used this platform to donate towards the uniform fundraiser specifically as well as our usual "Help Teach Africa to Read" campaign.
The unform fundraiser has made a huge difference. What typically happens is that the mothers have to take their child in two taxis to a store in Pretoria which to purchase uniforms that are quite good quality and do last a long time in comparison to local substitutes.
We recently were able to purchase 30 items with the funds that raised and had them delivered just in time for the cold winter weather! We asked the school social worker and our volunteers at school who work closely with the kids to compile a list of which students needed what items the most. We started with the most vulnerable children who might not have an adult to take them to Pretoria and from there looked for which third graders we work with as well as any student in the most need.
We are ever so grateful for the kind donations and the children were absolutely thrilled to receive new uniforms.
As you can imagine it was such a big help with all the challenges parents are facing with the Covid crisis. Many have lost their jobs as domestic workers or in the restaurant and other industries due to Covid and just cannot afford the uniform and transportation costs. We have distributed the items and have a few extra commonly needed items like shoes, dresses, and trousers for anyone who may need these in the coming weeks.
Thanks again for making a difference in South Africa!
The Edu Fun Team
Links:
Edu Fun partners with Diepsloot Combined School (DCS) located in an economically disadvantaged informal settlement north of Johannesburg.
Edu Fun is a 100% volunteer led organisation that relied heavily on volunteers going into the schools and teaching reading Face2Face prior to Covid-19. During 2020 we were only able to offer a virtual volunteering program in Diepsloot and about one third of our volunteers continued to give lessons online. This did not come without challenges due to the high cost of mobile data, the limited number of devices and the fact that the whole of Diepsloot was out of electricity for most of the Winter and lockdown period and our volunteers were not allowed into the schools.
Due to food insecurity and many people being unemployed, the area was not considered safe and the school was not allowed to have any visitors. When visitors were allowed to go into the schools, the number of volunteers accompanying us was still limited. Many of our volunteers were not comfortable to leave their homes, several had comorbidities and were older than 60 years of age and others suddenly found themselves home-schooling their own children.
Our volunteers continue to be a great help behind the scenes with preparing "meals in a bag", teaching lessons online and those who can, also make financial donations to support our work. Over the last year, we had to rely heavily on local volunteers, and although they were volunteering their time, they realistically also needed money for transport and food, and we had to provide them with support that we had not budgeted for.
Despite the assistance from our virtual and local volunteers, we still did not have enough support to achieve our usual goal of providing literacy instruction to 200 Grade 2 learners on a weekly basis.
What was exciting though is that we had started working with a group of youth in the Township of Alexandra (Alex), East of Johannesburg. The group of students were already trained to teach yoga and had received training in the Phono-Graphix Reading method so that they could teach yoga and reading at schools in Alex. Even though the pandemic and subsequent lockdown meant that this program came to an abrupt halt in March - we were slowly able to resurrect it and through online training and the students working with children in their own communities. The first group of students were able to complete their certification requirements and collectively reached about 200 children in Alex. Towards the end of 2020 this group also visited our Diepsloot program where we were able to give them additional mentoring while they assisted us by reaching children in Diepsloot. A real win-win.
Edu Fun, together with Read for Africa had trained about 40 youth from Alex in Phono-Graphix and the first 20 to become certified Phono-Graphix Reading Therapists received their certificates in December 2020. This group of students as well as a new group of unemployed youth who will be joining the program this year will continue to teach reading in Alex, however, part of their workplace experience will be that they also come to Diepsloot for 2 days a week to gain valuable experience and mentoring and will provide much needed Face2Face instruction to the children (especially in the absence of our usual volunteers). They will earn a small stipend from a learnership program and gain work experience teaching reading with us. In this way we will be able to reach a minimum of 400 Grade 3 learners per week (200 in Diepsloot and 200 in Alexandra). Bearing in mind that these students missed out on over 9 months of Grade 2 last year, which would have been their first year that they were exposed to literacy in English. They have lost out on almost a year of school but were automatically promoted to the next grade. We are so pleased that we will be able to work with these learners in their Grade-3-year to close the many gaps that are evident due to missing so much of the academic year.
Our Virtual Volunteering will continue, but as much as the students and volunteers love this program it's not the most cost effective or sustainable way of ensuring that every child receives some kind of an intervention. We hope to be able to purchase more devices as well as find a data/Wi-Fi solution that is not 100% dependent on electricity.
So, our every changing and ever-increasing wish list now includes asking for transport money to assist the youngsters who will travel from Diepsloot to Alex twice a week. This is a 70 kilometre (approx. 43 mile) daily trip at a cost of $4 dollars per day per person. This equates to about $85 dollars a day for the group and will end up costing about $500 a month. This will not only provide amazing support to our Diepsloot program, but it will also give this group of newly certified tutors as well as those in training the tools and resources to replicate this project in their own communities and local schools. This group also plan to start their own small businesses and offer extra reading lessons to private clients in their own communities to increase their income.
Thank you to our GlobalGiving community and all of you who have supported as and have kept the Edu Fun light shining during Covid-19. Your continued support means that we will be able to provide some of the following resources to multiply our impact and reach at least 400 learners in 2021.
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Monthly
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