Education project to uplift Transkei village

NEED

The Xhora Mouth AA comprises six remote rural villages. It is an area that epitomises the most acute poverty challenges of the country: a legacy of non-existent or poor education provision, a limited subsistence economy which forces many people out of the village into migrant labour and an absence of basic government services.

The Bulungula Incubator’s work with primary-school aged children to date highlights significant gaps in their knowledge and skills and Grade 6 learners ‘graduating’ from the local government school fail to understand basic mathematical concepts, or to read or write with any fluency or comprehension.

OVERVIEW

Given the associated challenges of entrenched poverty, illiteracy and poor service delivery, ensuring access to quality education in this remote rural area is a key priority for this organisation. In order to be most effective, our education interventions begin with the preschool child.

The funds raised for this project will be used to support the Bulungula Incubator’s education programme. The achievements of this programme since its inception include:

• Building a primary school in the village
• Building a fully equipped Early Childhood Development (ECD) centre that caters for up to 60 children between the ages of 3 and 6 years
• Establishing a community library
• Creating a weekly after-school tutoring programme for grade 1, 2 and 3 pupils
• Establishing a rural schools development programme which will provide holistic support to a minimum of five poorly resourced local schools
• Initiating two school-based food gardens and nutrition programmes which provide healthy meals to 200 children each day

Future plans for the educational development programmes include:

• Expanding the range of quality ECD services.
• Creating an outreach programme aimed at parents and caregivers, to promote the concept of early childhood development in the home and to raise the awareness of the importance of education.
• Expanding the library programme, including more books, educational resources and computer training.
• Expanding the scope and reach of the rural schools mentorship programme.

WHAT WE LIKE ABOUT THIS PROJECT

• This project seeks to solve the problem of poor quality education starting with Early Childhood Development. This will ensure that children are adequately prepared to enter the formal schooling system.
• The organisation constantly works with the community and focuses on skills development and job creation.
• Although some staff and volunteers are currently recruited from outside of the village (due to local skills shortages), the organisation is committed to building local capacity to the level where the organisation is less reliant on outside skills.
• The project focuses on the long term development of children by working with the primary and secondary schools in the area.

IMPACT HIGHLIGHTS

An investment of R165 000 will cover 24% of the costs of the Bulungula Incubator’s education programme, which has a direct impact on the education of 900 children.

The ECD centre, library, outreach programme and after-school programme will also be a source of employment and skills development for a number of people from the community.

ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY

The Bulungula Incubator non-profit organisation was established in 2007, 3 years after the establishment of the renowned Bulungula Lodge. The lodge was established to pilot tourism as a platform for rural development and job creation in the Eastern Cape. The success of the lodge led the founder to seek ways to increase the impact they were making in the area, through the formation of the Bulungula Incubator.

The Bulungula Incubator runs projects in four different developmental areas, namely Education; Health and Nutrition; Basic Services; and Sustainable Livelihoods. The Bulungula Incubator has a good track record in implementing efficient and effective programmes in each of these different sectors.

RISK PROFILE

Key Strengths

• Control: The organisation has an excellent reputation within the community and has structures in place to ensure that they get the buy-in from the community before approaching any new project.
• Design: Helping young children to effectively develop better cognitive skills will assist in their development throughout their school years
• Capability: The programme manager has 36 years of experience in the education sector. She has been visiting the village for over six years and can speak isiXhosa.
• Sustainability: This organisation is sustainable as a large amount of their income comes from many different funders. They operate in such a way as to ensure a good use of their resources.

Key Risks - Low

• Concept: The concept of alleviating poverty through education is a good concept but difficult to implement in such rural settings.
• Capability: The Bulungula Incubator is a relatively young organisation and still relies heavily on input from volunteers. Its achievements in the region, however, indicate that it is capable of running projects with a high social impact in the district.
• Control: The success of the support intervention in the existing government schools relies on the co-operation of educators and the support of the Department of Education.