Community Project – Monja Boonzaier South-Africa
During the past year since the start of the Child’Space training I have been spending my free time to do pro-bono work in Kliptown, Soweto where I have run a few Child’Space classes for mothers and babies. I have observed and worked with the Children at the Future Angels Day care in Soweto as well as visiting other Day care centres in Tshwane (formerly Pretoria).
Pretoria (Tshwane) in the Gauteng Province is the administrative capital of South Africa and a 45min drive outside Johannesburg where I live. Pretoria is known as “the Jacaranda city” for its thousands of Jacaranda trees. It is also home to universities and government buildings. The Union buildings encompass the president’s offices and hosted Nelson Mandela’s inauguration. I visited a Non-Profit Organisation called PEN based in Pretoria (Pre-School Micro-Franchising for effective Early Childhood Development for All) in June last year together with some representatives of First National Bank. We visited 3 different Day Care Centres to see how things operate and how the Children are being educated. After our visit I spend a couple of hours at a Day care centre where there were more babies.
From my observations (visits to various Day care centres) and feedback with people working within the Early Childhood Development sector in South Africa there is not much stimulation given to the babies in the Day Care Centres and Nursery Schools. The babies are being cared for in a space the size of a standard bedroom, there are a few mattresses, cots and baby chairs and some toys, if any at all, to play with. The babies are being fed during the day, their nappies are changed and there is a teacher/care giver looking after them. In some schools the baby room is so small the cots and chairs take up all the room and there is no floor space for the babies to move.
I have identified the following problems;
- Day Care centres are having to rely on Donations and Sponsors for Financial support. This type of funding is not sustainable in the medium to long term.
- Lack of stimulation for the babies.
- Lack of care givers, and care givers are not educated in how to stimulate the babies besides feeding them and changing nappies.
In December 2015, the South African cabinet ratified the National Integrated Policy for Early Childhood Development (ECD). The policy represents a political commitment to make ECD services of quality for young children universally available. See the National Integrated Policy act link below:
The policy clearly shows that Government recognises the status of Children in South Africa and acknowledges the risk to the wellbeing of young children and the long-term growth of the nation. The South African Government seems to have a good plan in place, but the problem lies in the implementation. In the mean-time day care centres are being affected, the Angel Day care centre in Kliptown mentioned earlier is an example of a day care centre that is not receiving support
from the Government and is situated in an underdeveloped area. In South Africa existing ECD programmes in rural and poverty-stricken areas are predominantly Funded by NGOs in the private sector. The Italtile Foundation who is sponsoring my Child’Space training now is an
example of an organisation supporting ECD. As part of my sponsoring agreement with the Foundation I agreed to start my own Pilot project where I would like to implement the Child’Space method, and this is how my Kliptown story was born.
My idea is to see if there is a way to raise money in order to bring more care givers to the Kliptown Community. The Kliptown Community Pre-school is a registered organization with the aim to acknowledge children and prepare them for a better future. The organization was established because there was a need to address the issue in the community where children were idling in streets being exposed to many forms of abuse. The organization was initiated by Francina Smith – now 71-year-old – who is the Director and principal of the school. The centre has 88 children with only 3 teachers. They have 27 babies (6 months -3 years) with only one caregiver. I have immense respect for this woman who runs the centre without any remuneration or financial reward. It is simply her passion that drives her. Francina told me that her own children are taking care of her and this is the reason why she can look after the children in the centre, her passion for taking care of and preparing the children for school is what is keeping the centre alive and running. Francina identified that one of the big problems in the school is a lack
of care givers, as she cannot employ more caregivers or teachers as there is no funds to pay them. I asked Francina about applying for financial support from the government which she did but without any response. The Centre does not have any telephone lines or internet connection which makes the follow up process very difficult.
The initial plan will be to get funding in order to pay for and educate more caregivers and then to
devise a plan whereby the school can generate money to be self-sustainable and not rely on
public funding.
- My plan for the future is to start a program to train caregivers.
- I contacted an organization in Germany who is very interested in my project idea and would like to help me get funding.
- I have since registered my own Non Profit Company called Move. Touch. Learn – Hamba.Bamba.Funda (Zulu). The name has been approved and I am now waiting for registration papers in order to open a bank account.
- The company in Germany will assist in helping with social media set up. The guy from Germany will be coming to South Africa in May, I will take him to Kliptown to introduce him to everyone and to give him insight to my project idea.
March 2019, Johannesburg, Monja Boonzaier,
