Overwhelming social problems such as poverty, child abuse, and lack of family and teacher support often cripple South African youth to envision a better future. These factors, among others, contribute to the low-level performance of learners and their enthusiasm to stay in school. Increasing school dropout rates are still a prevailing crisis in the country.
The Khulani Schools Program exists to address the complex challenges prevalent in our society by providing access to high-quality education. Since its inception in 2018, we have proudly impacted over 500 teachers, 6000 learners, and countless families through a proven community-driven education model.
Until now, we’ve focused exclusively on supporting learners in secondary school (grades 9 to 12) as they prepare for post-matric opportunities by investing in school governance, teacher training, digital skills, school infrastructure, and career guidance.
On 19 April, we onboarded our first group of seven primary Khulani Schools in the community of Braamfischerville: Braamfischer Primary, Moses Kotane, Julius Sebolai, JB Marks, Nkone Maruping, Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela and Khulanolwazi. This growth takes our total active school count from three to ten, which is more than a 200% increase in the number of teachers and learners to be impacted over the next few years!
“We are proud to increase our reach and expand our impact within the communities that we serve. The onboarding of these new primary schools has shown us that we are well on our way to achieving our goal of impacting 25 schools by 2025.” – Shalane Yuen, Trevor Noah Foundation Executive Director.
Exciting plans lie ahead for the year 2022. At each of the seven primary schools, we are sponsoring and implementing the following initiatives:
- Literacy development with Nal’ibali’s expertise in promoting reading and writing in mother tongue languages by placing young people in schools, stocking classrooms with reading materials and training teachers and caregivers on how to support children’s literacy development.
- Numeracy support for foundation phase learners.
- Psycho-social support for teachers from My Online Therapist to empower teachers with effective mental health awareness and solutions.
- Infrastructure development through the Faranani Infrastructure Project, which has already been running for the past 12 months, leveraging unemployed youth aged 18 – 28 to refurbish and maintain each school.
- Governance training to ensure quality decision-making among the stakeholders which are made up of the staff, parents, and students.
Our Chairman, Trevor Noah, is an Ambassador of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) 4: Quality Education. Proud to be an active contributor to the realization of this goal, we continuously strive to be a beacon of hope by providing learners with the tools to dream, see and achieve the impossible.
Join us in our efforts to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” and get involved in empowering the future of South Africa here.
