ABC FOR LIFE!

Our literacy programme, ABC FOR LIFE, has just been officially launched, gaining momentum and awareness in the community!

Although the programme has been running for a few months now, we held a cocktail fundraiser yesterday for the first time in the community.

Despite the demands of planning for the venue, sending out invitations, organizing catering and bartenders, and then on the day of the event, dealing with the vicious Cape wind which blew tables and chairs around like cotton balls and having several glasses and vases broken, it was all worth it in the end.

See pics of some of the kids doing a mini drumming circle at the function, the picture-poster collage of the students and Gailyn (dedicated teacher and good friend of ours) with some of the students.

Right now we are only working in one of the township schools in Hout Bay, Sentinel Intermediate School. It is by the fishing harbour, and so the make-up of the students are mainly coloured children.

ABC FOR LIFE is a programme designed to help those who are struggling in basic literacy skills in all grade levels. We take students from various ages who have been passed up the system each year, despite the fact that they can barely read simple words.

The fact that a teacher in the South African education system cannot fail a student twice in a "phase" (period of 5 years) results in a classroom with students with wide-ranging abilities. And as the old story goes, with class sizes ranging in the mid-40's, it is impossible for teachers to address every student's needs.

Questions burn in my mind: How have thousands of schools around the WORLD managed to find themselves in such a similar state of being mis-managed, mis-guided, ill-equipped and ill-funded? What went wrong in both the education systems in wealthy, cosmopolitan Hong Kong and in a tiny informal fishing harbour settlement on the Western coast of South Africa? Different but so similar.

I guess no one problem is ever isolated. And illiteracy is definitely no exception. Although one can probably hypothesize the deeper issues of illiteracy, it's become very real and raw to me since I've started working with the project.

Illiteracy stems not just from not having enough resources and trained professionals to deal with the problems, but it goes back to poor social conditions, family break-downs, domestic violence, crime and drugs (tik is a common, cheap, addictive drug - used and abused by toddlers and grandparents alike) in the community and home, and illiterate parents (due to the apartheid era).

The holidays are coming up but come January when the new school year starts, we will go ahead full-force with new resources, equipment, teachers and trained volunteers.

It should not be a struggle to offer good quality education to children. But our world has made it so that it is not only a struggle, but a continuous and exhausting full-armored battle.