Education Programmes for Kids &Teachers, Cape Town

Thank you for supporting science and robotics workshops, run by ORT SA CAPE, for disadvantaged children in Cape Town. Your support is making a real difference.

A three-day workshop was held for children from Seawind Educare and the Thope Foundation. Seawind Educare is one of CHW's partner organisations in Cape Town and we are glad to have been able to link them with ORT SA CAPE. The Principal of the Educare, Rita, does work in the wider community too, and organised a group of children to come from Lavender Hill for two of the days. The children from the Thope Foundation came from the township, Khayelitsha. All the children come from deprived areas.

Janet at ORT SA CAPE gave the following updates from the workshop. The children were aged seven to fourteen. The seven- to ten-year-olds focussed on the actual building blocks of robotics, including gears and axles, and they then applied this information as they built robots. The facilitators guided them in building robotic spinners and dancing birds.

The group of eleven- to fourteen-year-olds worked with the more complex robotics system, Mindstorms. They did various programming exercises, to understand basic programming functionality. They were also shown how the robots react with the various sensors that are in the kit, including the light and sound sensors.

One girl, Chantel, was part of the group from Lavender Hill. She is in Grade 3. She very much enjoyed building a lego robot and learning how to programme it with a laptop. She said “I loved building robots. I wish I can do this every day. Thank you so much!” 

Thank you very much for sponsoring places for disadvantaged children in Cape Town to attend ORT SA CAPE's science and robotics workshops. We are grateful for your amazing support.

We are very happy to have been able to link one of our other partner organisations in Cape Town, Seawind Educare, with ORT SA CAPE. Rita, the Principal of Seawind Educare, works with the wider community too. She brought together. and accompanied a group of children, to participate in one of ORT SA CAPE's three-day workshops. These children were part of a group from the Cape Flats Development Association (CAFDA), which looks after communities in very impoverished areas where there is massive unemployment and high levels of crime.

Janet at ORT SA CAPE gave us the following updates from the workshop. The workshop took place at the Cape Town Science Centre. The children were between the ages of six and twelve years old. The children used kits to build robots using technological design principles, which help to develop critical thinking, reading and listening skills and hand-eye coordination.

One boy, Denzil, who is in Grade 3, very much enjoyed building and programming a lego robot. He became absorbed by this task and was very proud with the end result! Another boy, Wadeley, who is in Grade 4 also really enjoyed programming a lego robot and concentrated hard when building his robot.

Janet wrote that through donations like yours, ORT SA CAPE is able to reach more children and give them multiple opportunities to learn.

Rita wrote to say thank you after the workshop, saying:

"...The knowledge that [the children] gained was the highlight of the workshop.  If these kids that come from poor areas can have such workshops in the future, it will make choosing their careers so much easier. Seeing their handiwork move [the robots], was amazing.

To every sponsor who had a hand in sponsoring our kids from CAFDA we, as the CAFDA group, extend our gratitude, because nobody really thinks about kids who cannot afford the science centre, but all of you as sponsors made it possible for us to attend the workshop..."

A huge thank you to each of you who contributed to this project and made it all possible for these children!