Economic Growth South Africa Project #28126

Support Early Childhood Development in Rural SA

by Nourish

Project Report | Dec 28, 2017
A Special Nourish Christmas

By Sarah Bergs | Project Leader

The joy of a Gift

These last few months have been focused around our Financial Literacy projects in the creches – starting the first bank accounts for more than 100 children. Don’t you remember growing up – every year your parents putting money into an account for you, for your studies or future one day? We hope the little First Bank accounts we started for these children will encourage their parents to save for them, to be in charge of their finances – and to one day be able to afford school uniforms or school books.

Thanks to some awesome donations during the Christmas season from individuals as well as local school, Southern Cross – we were able again to drop off some amazing educational toys, including blocks, puzzles and so much more at Pfukani, Boikhotso, Keyelani, and Languthelani crèche.

In addition – we hosted a Teacher Training Workshop through Izingane Foundation – where we focused on challenges and successes in Early Childhood Development, the importance of a routine, and how to make easy educational toys. It was an honour for me to see such lovely teachers, an honour to have Lonie from Izingane host the workshop - and an honour to have Belgian ECD teacher and intern Sabrina share her love of teaching and how to make simple resources. So EDUCATION – RESOURCES –and FINANCIAL LITERACY have been the course of the day.

Plus of course Christmas and the first NOURISH Graduation. We are so fortunate to have several of the Nourish crèche children sponsored- and it was partly through this funding (and another GlobalGiving Christmas campaign/private donors) that we hosted a special special event. 6 little Nourish graduates in cap and gown proudly graduated to Grade R ( “big school”) parents were so proud,hugging us and crying. In Africa – this symbol of going to school is a special one, a privilege that many grannies and old parents in post-apartheid South Africa don’t take for granted. It was so special for us to share their joy in seeing their childrens singing and dancing and performances. So clever our little kids! Thank you to all the donations that made sweets, toys, and even the first school uniforms possible. To every donation – and in specific every child sponsor, please never underestimate the difference your money made in the lives of these little children. Instead of the usual Santa – we brought in some CONSERVATION love with Mr Elephant handing our the prezzies, trepidation and then little hands lovingly stroking Mr Elephant as they excitedly got their gifts.

To all we wish you a wonderful Christmas- and we bear in mind the words of Mother Theresa-

We can do no great things – only small things, with GREAT LOVE. Thank you all!

PLEASE check out the link for the photos of the Graduation, & Christmas ( WIFI too bad to upload pics unfortunately ) so please check out the link

Our Graduates - so proud!

Links:

Facebook link for MORE PICS

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Sep 18, 2017
First things First -our RISE ECD Outreach Update

By Sarah Bergs | Founder

Teaching children Hygiene from a Young Age

Hi!

First of all i want to thank you again for your support of our Early Childhood Development Outreach - and the projects and impact you make possible. Its really speical work to engage with creches throughout rural Acornhoek; we get to create clean, healthy, stimulating spaces for children in these impoverished areas simply by providing much needed support to their ECD centers and this is only possible because of your support.

The first thing we decided to do was assessment visits with our beneficiary creches/partner creches to establish what their main needs are, what their challenges are and where support is needed. We facilitated these visits with two Belgian preschool teachers who volunteered their time and skills to visit our creches and not only do a survey, but also share some advice and inspiration with the community creche facilitators.

Thank you Lies & Sabrina for sharing your expertise to our African creches!

For us it was important to get to understand what the standards are at grassroots creches, what children have to play with, and eat, if they have toilets, or electricity, or any other funding. Whilst the childrens faces and songs warmed your hearts, it was also so difficult to see how little so many of these children have,and shows you what an important role our outreach plays in supporting these centers. Caring for the children in these villages will becomea beacon of hope and its special to become involved in that space. We filled our questionaires with each creche and now have a great understanding of where to start being involved. This understanding, suvery, and understanding the restults was for us, STEP 1.

We have now already started gathering boxes of resources for each creche... toys, educational books, puzzles and a few teacher resources are being packed and ready to deliver. ( Keep your eyes posted for this in our next update report.) Also for those that sponsored a Child - we hope you enjoyed getting their personal picture and update. Thank you for the role you play in this childs life.

We also set up our first food security mini-garden in recycled tyres at Languthelani creche during the school holidays. Thank you to Wildlands Conservation Trust and Benneth for your passion for permaculture.

Look forward to sharing more with you about our journeys with each of these special creches.

Many thanks, as always, for your support

Till next time

Making a Difference to the Leaders of Tomorrow

Planting a Garden for Food Security

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Jun 19, 2017
Adding Colour to Childrens lives

By Sarah Bergs | Project Leader

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