Current Charity   |   Previous Charity 2011 to 2007   |   Creche Pictures

Current Charity - 2012

Sinenjongo High School

Sinenjongo High School in Joe Slovo Park, Milnertonl serves an extremely impoverished community which has a high unemployment rate and a large number of children run families. Due to its location close to upmarket areas, it is rated by the Western Cape Education Department as a Quintele 4 school requiring learners pay school fees to help cover the cost of running the school. However very few of the learners can afford the R250 a year school fees.

The prefabricated school has little or no resources - no hall, no library/resource centre, no staff room and no sports fields or facilities.

In spite of this, corporate sponsorship of the school in recent years has enabled the school to lift its matric pass rate from 27% in 2008 to close to 90% in 2011. Last year 77 matrics passed - double that of the previous year with 56 qualifying to go on to tertiary education.

This was achieved by private sponsorship covering the salaries of additional top class maths, science and English teachers who are tasked with not only teaching but upskilling the other educators in order to make a sustainable difference.

The K-Way Platteklip Charity Challenge is joining forces with the corporate sponsors to ensure these and other programmes can continue so that Sinenjongo - already a beacon of hope in this otherwise desolate landscape - can be transformed into a Centre of Excellence and retain more and more learners within the school system through to matric.

Previous Charity - 2011 to 2007

Aids Resource Center / Ubomi / Watoto

2011 CHARITY CHALLENGE FUNDRAISER - Total R400K (R50k went to Wilderness Search and Rescue)
2010 CHARITY CHALLENGE FUNDRAISER - Total R449K
2009 CHARITY CHALLENGE FUNDRAISER Total R494K
2007 ARGUS X2 FUNDRAISER- Total R343K

Currently we are taking the Kosovo and Samora Machel Vulnerable Kids programme to a new level. Our intervention includes:

• Continued support towards registration by Social Development of the 4 creches which were our core focus in 2011. This enables them to received a subsidy to run their crèches and stand on their own feet.
• Equipping and feeding 100s of starving & under-nourished 0-6 years olds living in the Kosovo shack community from our Kosovo Kids Kitchen - based out of the Vukuzenzele Creche which donors re-built as a brand new structure in 2011.
• Building a Babies Creche in Kosovo
• Providing Resources and Trainings to the 16 unregistered shack crèches in Kosovo
• Support of OVCs

Over 2011 Ubomi continued to forge ahead with its involvement in the Samora Machel and Kosovo recognising the enormous significance of investing in early childhood development.

We focused our efforts fully on unregistered creches (Early Childhood Centres -ECD) in Samora Machel and the shack community of Kosovo (Philippi) to assist the creche 'champions' not only grow a small 'business' for themselves, but provide the best start to the children attending. Creches play a pivotal role in providing us with a point-of-entry to vulnerable children in the community and it was from one such crèche where we rescued 11 month year old twin girls last year and continue to provide full-time care for while Social Services are doing their investigations.

Working closely with the ECD assistants and local Social Services office we conducted a needs analysis and identified approximately 25 unregistered ECD centres in this area servicing 600+ children and were able to provide resources and trainings to accompany.

During this process of relationship building we identified 4 ECD Centres servicing 200 children, and made a decision to provide a holistic solution to these. These crèches were, Forever Educare, Masikhule Educare and Ithemba Educare in Samora Machel and Vukuzeenzele Educare in Kosovo with Masikhule Educare and Ndamase Educare in Kosovo also receiving assistance. Partnership agreements were drawn up and collectively we: built 3 new galvanised-zinc classrooms with concrete laminated/carpeted floors, provided partitioning and fire-resistent fibre cement painted walls and toilet blocks; installed 4 jungle gyms; supplied kitchen equipment, safety equipment, first aid equipment and training, shelving and storage as well as a full supply of educational and art resources. December saw 20 Grade Rs graduate for big school!

Charity Challenge support to creches over the past year included:

• Galvanised Classrooms and toilet blocks built
• Concrete slabs laid
• Carpeting and laminated flooring
• Painting
• Jungle gyms installed
• Zinc sheeting for leaking roofs
• Creative art training with supply kits
• Plastic tables and chairs
• Potties
• Blankets
• Matresses
• Books
• Kitchen equipment
• Fire extinguishers
• First-aid kits and training to use the kits
• Storage boxes, wooden books shelves and paint and toy cupboards
• Posters
• Educational toys including shape sorter buckets, stacking cups, pegboards, puzzles
• Manipulative and construction equipment including blocks, threading etc
• Educational games including memory, shapes and colours
• Numeracy equipment including abbacus, number games, buckets of beads etc.
• Art supplies including scissors, glues, play dough and cutters, staplers and staples, hole punch, etc.
• Fantasy play equipment including cots, ironing boards and irons, wooden stoves and pots, car carpet and cars, farm animals etc.
• Co-ordination equipment including bean bags, hoops, skipping ropes etc.

Creche Pictures