Empowering South African Youth Through Education

At a time when disruption and uncertainty are the new – hopefully temporary – normal in the world of education, The Umkhumbane Schools Project ("USP") is grateful to have been able to keep moving forward during the COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa.  Change can be disconcerting but can also present opportunities for growth and innovation --  and this has certainly been true for us in these last few months.

Our last report came to you in the exciting early days of our mobile math initiative.  We are continuing to provide real-time math instruction to learners from all five of our schools on their cell phones.  This is surely one area of growth and innovation we would not have predicted pre-pandemic.

Schools have reopened in South Africa on a staggered schedule (for all but the Grade 12 learners, who attend every day) and this has presented us with another opportunity.  Because the Grade 9 learners whom we were working with in the USP Maths Centre are currently on the school schedule only one day per week, we have met with the management team at two of our schools and are now teaching math to the Grade 9’s in those schools on two additional days during the week.  The learners are already hard at work and seem so eager for the additional instruction! 

We have recently resumed our Friday Mathematics program for our Grade 12 learners and continue to navigate the challenges of providing a safe setting for in-person teaching and learning.  The wonderful community library room where we used to teach is closed, so we have moved into classrooms at one of our partner schools, dividing the learners into small groups that meet in separate rooms and hiring additional teaching assistants to cover each room.   So far this is working well, and attendance has been steady and enthusiastic.

Many of these Grade 12 learners are among those selected for this year’s AHEAD program – another Umkhumbane Schools Project initiative which has remained in full swing despite the COVID shutdown.  We are pleased to have identified a roster of 59 promising learners drawn from all five of our schools, whom we are providing with wrap-around assistance in applying to college and finding scholarships.  So far, the learners in our AHEAD group have submitted a total of 118 applications across 11 of the most well-recognized South African universities and universities of technology.  Four of these learners have already received conditional (early) offers of admission.  And we are proud to note that The Umkhumbane Schools Project has nominated five new candidates for the prestigious Moshal Scholarship for the coming academic year!

Thanks to your generous support as one of our wonderful GlobalGiving donors, The Umkhumbane Schools Project is alive and well during these uncertain and unprecedented times.  Now, more than ever, we feel the significance of being a steady presence in our learners’ lives, helping them reach towards a brighter future even as so much of what is around us has been shaken.  We are truly grateful to you for making this possible.

We hope that you and your family are safe and well.  

With heartfelt gratitude from all of us here at The Umkhumbane Schools Project,

Martha