Education for Children in Rural South Africa

The new year is already shaping to be a great one. We returned from summer holidays with a more refined, innovative, and sustainable strategy than ever before - in large part, thanks to your generous contributions. I wanted to share with all of you the impact you made at Thanda last year, from increased enrolments to improvements in game-changing skills, and providing nutritious meals – none of it could have been possible without your support. 

Last year, my personal goal was to get out from behind my desk more and participate in the wonderful activities that are happening every day at Thanda. In doing so, I have seen new and old participants grow into confident and curious learners who are able to speak about their work to a big class. In fact, a local teacher once told me, “Now when they perform in front of class, they take the lead because they are confident in their work.” I also received feedback from a parent of one of our After-school participants who commented that, “This is her first year in Thanda and I can see the change already. You don’t have to ask her about what she did at school that day, she is the one who tells us.”  This improvement in self-esteem is just one of the skills that you have provided children with the opportunity to build through our Creative Learning Curriculum. Our internal evaluations show that their literacy skills improved by 197% and empathy by 109%.

You helped our Early Childhood Development Programme grow from 19 children to  60 in four innovative classrooms inspired by themes such as The Lorax and the Colour Monster – some of the children’s favourite story books. Each classroom has a reading area, creative area, play area, and cognitive learning area. By supporting our Early Childhood Development Programme, you’re providing care and cognitive development for children a critically important stage in their lives. This is the age when children develop an active imagination that fuels their creativity, which sets the foundation for their ability to develop lateral thinking and problem-solving skills later in life. I find so much joy in spending time with the littlest ones in our community while they are creating and playing.

This year we found that former Thanda ECD students who completed Grade 1 scored 10-15% higher in Maths, English and Zulu than those who did not attend Thanda ECD, proving that your investment in early education has made a tremendous long-term impact. 

We believe that the learning process is more fluid and natural when it is fun and memorable and are thankful for a community of supporters who share this mission.Thank you for being a part of our family and for your support during an incredible 2017. I look forward to seeing all we can accomplish in 2018!

Warm regards,

Angela Larkan

PS. If you haven’t done so already, we re-envisioned our branding and are working hard to bring the colourful experience of our programmes and community centre to our online communications. Our 2017 Impact Report is inspired by the paintings of our centre and, I must admit, I am thoroughly amazed at how data can be so visually appealing and easy to read. If you haven’t seen it already, find it here.