The Project
Volunteer to Teach at a Township School in Cape Town, South Africa

South Africa has come through a great period of change over the last decade, but one of the most important areas of change to ensure sustainable development is undoubtedly education. Sadly more and more teachers who are working in previously disadvantaged communities within South Africa are discovering that many of their students are in fact unable to read. Education in these areas is not meeting the desired levels and has shown high failure rates. This could have a disastrous impact on the great achievements South Africa has made recently and in time will have a larger influence on the social, economic and human development in this country. Students are managing to move up through the system by simply memorising letters but are not in fact mastering the required levels of literacy and numeracy skills. This particular program has been designed by local teachers and GVI to tackle these issues. All funding and manpower comes directly from Global Vision International and the volunteers. Without the contributions and assistance from GVI and the volunteers this program might not exist, and these children may be left struggling to keep up.

Nomazamo is a township which developed approximately 14 years ago as an informal settlement in response to job possibilities in the rapidly growing residential and industrial area's of Strand and Somerset West. For most of these people their employment source was in the building industry which over time has sadly decreased leaving an estimated 60% of the inhabitants in Nomzamo unemployed. The effect of this is that many of the children who attend this primary school which currently educates 1800 students, have parents who have taken to the streets leaving their children unsupervised and fending for themselves. As a result these children are not getting the support at home or at school due to the combination of high student numbers per class and the absence of parental supervision. GVI and the teachers at the primary school hope to assist some of these children with the extra supervision they require through volunteer support. The volunteers will take part in this educational reinforcement program which is dedicated to individual attention and direction for students in this poverty stricken township.