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