Proper education for children Mother of Peace

As you all know, the education our children get at the rural community schools is not the best. The (often unqualified) teachers do what they can but with over 50 children in a small classroom and hardly any tools or materials to use it is very hard to teach the children their subjects. All our children are far behind in their education, mostly when it comes to reading, writing and spelling.

With THRASS and our homework room program we try our best to give our children the extra attention and education that they so desperately need, but we also feel that if we really want our children to have a chance of a good future, we have to work on sending them to a proper school. 

We have discussed this matter with our management committy and they agree that proper education is one of the most important things that Mother of Peace could give our children. Therefore we agreed that, starting this year, the children that come from daycare go to Grade R at a proper Model C primary school! They will go to Tecoma, a good pre-primary school close to Mother of Peace. We went there to have a look and it looked great, clean, light, mix of dark and white children, sweet teachers and lots of possibilities for the children to develop themselves. Tecoma is the feeder school for Warner Beach primary, so as soon as the children are ready to go to Grade 1 that is where they will go. As it is very hard to find a space for children at good schools, the only way to get them in there is to start at Grade R.

All children that are already attending the community schools will stay there, we are now trying to find local teachers that want to volunteer and commit to teach our children in our after school program.

With the commitment of sending our children to a proper school comes a major cost implication. Where school fees for the community schools are about €10,- per year, Tecoma costs about € 650,- per child per year. We would have to have funds available to pay for the full 13 years of education for these children, so that they can finish school, even when they are placed back with their families in the community. We are starting with 4 children this year, another 5 children will be ready to go to Grade R next year.

Myriam, one of our current volunteers has offered to pay school fees for one of our children this year, I will pay for the other 3 children myself and set up a plan to raise funds (locally) for the education of our children. All donations, however small help so if you would like to help out by sponsoring some money for the schoolfees of our children that would be great!

Donations can be made via Stichting Be More, 12.17.74.228, Nijmegen, stating "schoolfees Mother of Peace".

If all goes well, Mpume, Anele, Pamela and Akhona could start at the new school next monday. We will definately keep you up-to-date about their progress!