TOMORROW is GivingTuesday with GlobalGiving

Hello ,

Edu Fun is participating in the #GivingTuesday Campaign
via the Global Giving platform tomorrow. 

#GivingTuesday is an opportunity to harness the generosity of people around the world to bring about real change in our community. With $1 MILLION USD in funding available from GlobalGiving, there’s never been a better time to give. 


This #GivingTuesday, GlobalGiving is giving away $1M to nonprofits from midnight to 11:59 p.m. EST (from 7am in South Africa) on Nov. 30. The more you give, the more Edu Fun gets! That means your gift, no matter the size, will be boosted, getting even more resources to the Diepsloot community via Edu Fun.
 

All money raised will go towards our literacy programme in Diepsloot which is aiming to teach 600 children to read in 2022 as well as employ at least 10 local youth to run the programme in order to repeat the very promising results we achieved this year with a similar model. 
 

Thank you to all of our volunteers, friends and supporters who have continued to help us re-imagine our education delivery and have continued to keep the Edu Fun light shining during Covid- 19.

Despite Covid and the inability of our usual volunteers to have regular and personal contact with the learners at Diepsloot Combined School for nearly 2 years, we have managed to train a group of youth from the Alexandra Township who have continued our Literacy programme at Diepsloot with very positive and encouraging results. Our Grade 3 learners have made great progress during 2021 having had little to no schooling for the whole of 2020 and then only attending school 50% of the time in 2021 due to large classes needing to be split because of social distancing.

The overall results are as follows (please let us know if you would like a copy of the full report)
 

We have been very fortunate to have worked in collaboration with Yoga4Alex who facilitated a group of unemployed youth spending 2 days a week teaching reading in Diepsloot. Yoga4Alex had the huge investment of paying for the weekly transport fees whilst Edu Fun and for Read for Africa conduct free on-site training in the Phono-Graphix Reading method which turned out to be a win-win for both communities.

The youth who have been teaching reading have earned a stipend while working towards their certification as Phono-Graphix Reading Therapists. The programme has provided financial relief for unemployed youth, provided them with a skill that has resulted in over 600 children having regular literacy instruction on a weekly basis and they have also started to build up their own private clients with the intention of starting their own businesses teaching reading so that they can continue to earn an income in the new year as their one-year contract as community workers draws to an end. 
 
This project came at a huge cost not only in terms of financial resources but also individual human resources where Edu Fun, Read for Africa and Yoga4Alex did whatever they could with what they had to ensure that the organisations’ common goal of improved Literacy in Diepsloot and Alexandra were met. Everyone pooled all their resources together and whilst the project was a success it is NOT sustainable or replicable without more funding and assistance.

We are now looking into how we can expand and further develop our current Covid adaptions to become a key model within all our projects where we rely more on local youth to teach reading on a daily basis rather than a weekly and sometimes adhoc volunteer programme.

Whilst working with volunteers obviously keeps ones’ costs down, the reality in challenging times, is that volunteers have their own crises and struggles and have to prioritise their own families, jobs etc. which results in interruptions to our programme. Young children cannot afford to have any breaks in their learning, however due to Covid this has been the norm rather than the exception.

A fourth wave is imminent in South Africa which is likely to continue to impact our usual volunteer programmes at the start of 2022 which will take months if not years to get back to the same level of hands-on and face2face support.

This has forced us to think differently and to continue to re-imagine our delivery.

We are therefore hoping to replicate this model in 2022, in Diepsloot, but employ local unemployed youth from Diepsloot to avoid paying high transport costs and to have the group working with Grade 2 and 3 children on a daily basis. This is obviously not something that we have had to budget for in the past due to being a 100% volunteer led programme. 

We aim to contract at least 10 local youth from Diepsloot but do not have sufficient funds to pay stipends to the youth to enable them to commit to the programme and attend every day. 

We are still hopeful that a large number of volunteers will return in 2022 and attend on a regular basis to support this programme and teach reading as well as mentor some of the youth who we will be working with. 

We estimate the cost of the entire project to be R540 000 ($37 000) for the whole of 2022.

This equates to R45 000 ($3000) per month and will reach up to 600 Grade 2 and 3 learners on two sites. This is only R75 ($5) per learner per month or R900 ($45) per learner per year.  

The above amounts would cover 

• Stipend for x10 youth who are currently unemployed
• Phono-Graphix Training and Certification for each tutor to teach reading using the method
• Resource materials for the tutors as well as the learners
• Some basic administration costs to run the programme

The long-term goal is to replicate the project in other schools in Diepsloot to keep producing smiles like the ones below and to continue celebrating hundreds of children’s’ achievements at the end of each year.
 

We also want to keep training a new group of youth each year to multiply our impact and to create jobs for more and more youth who will continue to teach reading for years to come. 

Please spread the word and the links below. Please share with your friends globally, especially those in the USA and UK as they will receive a tax certificate in their respective countries. If you would prefer to donate using our local South African bank account or would like a South African tax certificate, please email info@edufunsa.co.za - our banking details can also be found at the bottom of this email. 
 

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/teaching-africa-to-read/ 
 


Your support will help us to continue to adapt our delivery and overcome the challenges that the pandemic keeps presenting.




Thank you for helping all the teachers, volunteers and tutors to keep the Edu Fun
light shining as well as helping us to 

“Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and carry on” in 2022


     


Thank YOU 

 
The Edu Fun Team 


 

Account Name:  Edu Fun  
Bank: FNB
Branch: Randburg  
Branch Code:  254005  
SWIFT code: FIRNZAJJ  
Account Number:  62242345438