Help educares give SA children the start they need

"No words can actually speak my heart, no action can actually explain the happiness I have, there is no other way to  say this without saying Thank you so much Starting chance and the team for making my day and making sure that Shining Star Educare is shining brightly in its own corner we are so much grateful for your support."  Principal of Shining Stars Educare.

We take so much for granted! Light - powered by electricity is a given in many countries. Currently in South Africa, we have anything up to 4 load shedding outages A DAY. Now for many, we can use generators or solar, but for township educares - this is a dream beyond them. Noma-Efese works in a tiny shack. The rooms are dimly lit and during load shedding - not lit at all. For children - this makes learning so difficult. She is one of 5 educares that have very poor physical learning environments. There are poor sanitary conditions, wires hanging from walls and ceilings, holes in the roof, to name a few problems.

And yet, these are some of our top performing schools in the programme. How can this be? The principals and their teachers have passion, detemination and resiliance. They are determined that the children they care for get the best start that they can muster.

Bonita, who supports the principals had this to say: "My highlight for the year was seeing the principals grow as leaders. I saw with every visit, that they made effort to upgrade their admin. I especially felt so much joy when a shack school principal made an effort to obtain policies, make an inventory of her school, and have teachers planning templates. And the sense of empowerment that she felt... This was one of my best moments."

Shack to chic 2022 to 2024:

Safe and healthy learning environments are critical for young children to learn and develop. When schools join Starting Chance, they are often based in a shack, so their physical environments are in a poor condition. Once schools move into our hub programme and prove themselves to be committed to best practice, Starting Chance works hard to transform their environments from “shack to chic”.

This year thanks to generous donations both in-kind and financial, we have been able to begin a new cycle of upgrades. 

• Lutho Educare has been in our programme for many years – finally, it is their turn for an upgrade. The building is brick and mortar, but a number of modifications have left the roof in a poor condition. This is currently being replaced, and we have completely redone the kitchen using donated cupboards, the electric stove has been replaced with gas to avoid loadshedding. The electrics have been comprehensively repaired lighting has been upgraded and the plumbing system has also had an overhaul. Next week the painting team is moving in.
• Zusakhe Educare is in a lean-too shack. The leaking roof and poor electrics were an accident waiting to happen – so we redid them while we seek to raise the funds to build a new purpose-designed fireproof structure. The children are safter and the learning environment is light and bright!
• Qingqa Educare’s electrics and plumbing needed urgent attention. Like many RDP houses, low-cost ad hoc additions without planning approval create tricky problems. Now that the electrics, toilets and kitchen are properly operational we are focussing on trying to resolve the planning issues so that registration will be possible.
• Little Shining Stars Educare is a star performer, thanks to Beverly the hard-working principal. We are planning to build a purpose-designed classroom to replace the existing shack facility.
• Shining Stars Educare is also a star performer. Undoubtedly the smallest shack structure to ever be in our programme, it is one of the best learning environments. We are in the process of looking for a brick-and-mortar house we can purchase to convert into an educare for Noma-Efese to increase her impact.

But we can't do any of this alone. As you celebrate the festive season with beautiful lights and bright shining presents, please spare a thought for these schools and consider changing the lives of children, their parents and staff. Help us to finish these upgrades and to start looking at the next batch of shack schools that desperately need our help.

Thank you to all those who have helped us this year - we are truly humbled by your generosity.

Bringing light to these classrooms costs R100 ($6) - the light from your donation can help us to brighten a child's life forever.

Links:

• Our Shack to Chic project page
• The work we do

The theme for Mandela Day 2022, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” encourages ordinary citizens around the world to participate in making a difference. Mandela, born on 18th July in 1918, was truly a remarkable man. He was courageous. He spent 67 years of his life fighting for change. We are called to spend 67 minutes of our time on 18th July making a difference.

SO the question is: "What will you do?' Starting Chance has highlighted literacy. Nelson Mandela said, "It is not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education." If you have no access to books and language skills, your education is doomed to fail.

Starting Chance is planning to address literacy in a number of different ways. Many of the children in Mfuleni have never owned their own book. Stop and think about that for a moment. Imagine NEVER having owned your own book! No wonder that by the age of 5, a staggering 54,7 % of the poorest children in South Africa are falling behind their peers in language and literacy skills.How can you promote a love of reading when you don't get access to books. We want to ensure that each child in our programme - that's 1600 children, gets at least one book to take home and call their own. 

Parents in Mfuleni want to ensure that their children don't fall behind but many dont know how to help their child at home. We plan to change that by running literacy workshops for a 100 parents. We have invited guest speakers to share their skills and knowledge and give parents ideas and skills to change their children's lives at home and inculcate a love of reading in the family. We want to give each family a resource pack to promote literacy and language through games and books.

But there is more! Grade 1 teachers are struggling to meet the learning needs of the children they teach. Why is this? Carers and teachers in the early childhood sector don't know how to transfer skills to the children aged 0 - 5. They haven't been trained. As a result, South Africa has a literacy crisis. Many of the children are unable to read for meaning after three years of school. Stop and think about that! if you can't read for meaning, you won't understand core subjects at school. How do we change that?

We are running literacy workshops for the 150 teachers in our programmes and we are following those workshops up with visits from our fieldworkers to ensure that the training is implemented. We are distributing resource kits to all the schools we support to ensure that they have education supplies to enhance their teaching.

So what can you do to help us make all this happen? Please consider spending your 67 minutes sharing our campaign with friends and colleagues, donating money so that we can make this campaign thrive, donate time or educational games, donate books.

Imagine a world where all children are equal and can thrive as they move through their educational journey. Like Mandela, you can make an enormous difference. Please choose us! The Mfuleni children and their teachers and parents are waiting for YOU to change their lives! Thank you to everyone who joins this campaign.

Links:

• Mandela Day campaign
• Make a difference
• what we do