Fund 170+ Primary School Children in South Africa

Dear Supporters, 

We can't take students surfing during the winter as it is too cold and therefore not enjoyable. So it was with great excitement that we restarted out surfing program this month, bringing 11 students from ACJ Primary School back to the beach in Strand and working again with our partners Son Surf School.

The surfing trips are a reward for participation and effort in class.

The students were just as excited as we were! At least two of them asked about their surf sessions for the majority of the preceding week and all were ready to go as soon as we arrived to take them. Seeing the enthusiasm to get back into the program, and that enthusiasm still in evidence two weeks later when the novelty has started to wear off again, reinforces that the program meets its objective of rewarding students and ensuring that they do something fun and purposeful at the same time.

Though, understandably rusty, having not seen a wave for the best part of 4 months all of the students have been improving rapidly. Last week one of the girls was too worried about falling into the water to let go of her board, which more or less ensured that she fell in every time she tried to stand up. This week she was up and riding waves within 10 minutes of being in the water, and she was not alone in this. One student this week caught his first wave and immediately asked to go further out as the waves were “too small”. He and another boy ended up competing to see who could catch the biggest wave, bantering across the water with each other throughout the session. 

There is another benefit to all of this as well, and it doesn’t only affect the students.

The region holds surfing competitions each year, and they have a quota to work with. Son Surf and the other schools in the area struggle to reach young people in the more disadvantaged areas, which more or less means that black and coloured young people are unlikely to be surfers. Having the connection with ACJ means that our students not only get great training but also an opportunity to enter and do well in the competitions, which in turn leads to an opportunity to surf outside of the region in further competitions.

On a couple of occasions students from ACJ have been selected to compete for the region in Port Elizabeth, which means they get to see another area, another town, another beach. This opportunity is not one that is readily available to ACJ students, or to other young people from the Nomzamo area.

So for the students, this is a fantastic opportunity to explore new boundaries and for the surf school and the surfing bodies of the region it is an opportunity to work with students they would not otherwise see and to reach areas they might not otherwise have access to.

We can't wait to see how the surfing progresses through the South African summer!

With Gratitude, 
GVI South Africa

Dear Supporters, 

The early childhood curriculum in South Africa is based on children’s developmental stages. “It is based on the understanding that there is rapid development in children from birth to four years and that with a solid foundation they can grow into active and responsible citizens who are well prepared to make the most of all opportunities and experiences.” NELDs Dept Basic Ed SA 2009

Our role is to work with the local staff to help children reach their developmental norms in all areas of development.  We have set some learning focusses around numbers and counting, recognizing and hearing alphabet sounds and responding to stories. We have provided a range of tasks and assessed the children based on these.

Each morning the children have circle time.  This is when we sing action songs.  Whilst this is great fun, the deeper learning aspect is that children are experiencing rhyming, social skills, movement skills and lots of English vocabulary.

After snack time we have lesson time. We work with small groups of children.  The children start with a story and then go through the alphabet sounds.  Having pictures cues around the room as well as actions for each alphabet letter helps the children to process and remember the sounds.  The children then listen to a story and engage in a fine motor activity to reinforce the current theme topic. One recent example is that the children pasted shapes to make a face.  This gave children experience in cutting, matching, counting, recognizing shapes as well as recognizing facial features.

There are other parts of the day that also contribute to the children’s development.  Snack and lunch time are examples where we can support the children to complete the handwashing routine, look after their belongings, eat independently and tidy up after themselves.  These day to day living skills are an important part of development.

Our recent assessments reflected some good results for the children.  91% of the children were at or above standard with counting and numbers, 82% of the children could name and identify at least 3 more shapes than they could earlier in the year and all children could identify and name between 4 to 10 new animal names. Whilst we can measure these things, some of the big advances have been children’s ability to follow routines, learn a range of new songs and participate in class time.  These skills for learning cannot be underestimated.

Thank you for your continued support!

With Gratitude, 

GVI Cape Town