5th November Crossroads- Landisiwe Educare (Mfundo’s Pre - School)

It’s such a windy day in Crossroads today. I’m on my way to Mfundo’s Pre – school; it is so close to Philippi Mall. I arrive as Mfundo is talking to the children and his mother is with the babies and toddlers.

Landisiwe is a school with very small classrooms. There’s a television in the classroom. Mfundo explained that the room is used as their living room in the evenings.

With Mfundo’s assistance, we began a makeover!

At the end he was over the moon and even his mother could not believe the transformation! She was amazed that her old wooden shelf (she was going to get rid of) could look so attractive.

  

29 October Crossroads Nobantu Educare

It is such a lovely sunny Thursday. There’s some buzz of people going to the day clinic and learners going to the high school ( Mandela High) near Nobantu Educare. The principal has converted her garage into two classrooms which are so beautiful. 

When I arrived at the school the children were so cheerful and excited because the nurse was at school to give them some drops.

Busiswa, Siphokazi and I set up the classroom. Nobantu who is the principal of the school was so thrilled she couldn’t believe that this classroom was in her school.

22 October 2015 Crossroads: Siphamandla Make Over

Amidst the shacks and street vendors of Crossroads is the Siphamandla Educare.






It is a bright sunny day and we, the ELF team off load the car and are greeted by warm smiles.

Makhulu, The owner of the centre, is eager for us to begin and enthusiastically moves outside to the playground with the children. And so we begin…

The ELF team and trainees create activities to stimulate the children’s receptive skills.

The final product! The team is tired but pleased. The expression on the children’s faces – says it all! 

Makhulu says the children tell her they would rather be in the classroom than outside.    

                         

                                    

Cross Roads Background and First Meeting

Crossroads is one of the largest townships in South Africa. Situated near Cape Town

International airport.  It borders Nyanga, Phillipi, Heideveld, Gugulethu and Mitchells Plain.  

It began in the 1970’s when workers were told to leave a white farm and move to 'the crossroads'. Finding only bush, they built shacks and established a community that afforded families more scope for creating individual, respectable homes than the hostels of Guguletu.
As Crossroads was considered a temporary camp by the authorities, eviction orders were made in 1975. The battle to save Crossroads from destruction became a major battle of will between the government and the opposition movements during the late 1970s and 1980s.
Today, Crossroads is home to over 38000 people, ninety percent of whom have Xhosa as their first Language.

Project Crossroads:

On a cold wet Wednesday in August my colleague and I visited Siphamandla Educare in Crossroads. This was my first time in Crossroads and I was a little anxious after hearing stories about the high crime rate in this community.

The place looked crowded and it seems that there were people everywhere you looked. Mandisa, my colleague said that this was typical of “township life.”

Virginia, the principal of the Educare was waiting on the street and directed us into the gated area of the school.

 We met the group of trainees- They are so excited to meet us and enthusiastic to start!

19 March 2014

Last Day of Philosophy

It’s a nice misty day walking from the Phillipi Station to Tsonga Centre. As I approached the gate, I saw a group of men standing by the entrance of the 

centre. When I went inside to the room that facilitation takes place in there were groups of people and inside the building there was a buzzing of people. I went to Mzi who is he co-ordinator of the facility to ask what was happening. 

The room we normally used is occupied, he told me we could use the other room which was smaller than the one we normally use. 

I then asked him to tell Nikki of what was happening because the space he was giving us was not enough to accommodate all the ladies. He came back to me allowing us to use the other room which we used before for the literacy workshop. Finally we started our last day of philosophy.

I got so fascinated when one of the ladies was sharing her story on how important observing children is. She told us a baby died in her school. The mother brought the sick baby to school and didn’t tell her the baby was sick. She put the baby to bed. When it was nappy change routine, her mother noticed that baby was not breathing. She called the ambulance and they told her the baby had died. She told us that if she received information on observations, she believed that would not happen in her school. 

Mavis pointed out how she learnt and enjoyed the prepared environment. She told us that before she knew that she needed to prepare the environment for promoting effective learning, all she cared about was the safety of the children and that they had their meals. 

5 March 2014

I was so pleased to see all the ladies, only one was absent from the group. 

Performing philosophy lectures to the ladies was a great experience for me.

I learnt deep on how humans develop and how the sensitive period works, 

before I thought there is only one sensitive period, but now I learnt that 

sensitive periods are born, become very strong then die and new ones are born. 

The ladies also had great input because they also brought examples of what they 

were experiencing in their schools. As their facilitator I also learnt something from them. 

Ok so we haven't been blogging for a while! But things have really been happening at ELF ...keeping us too busy to keep you updated. 
No excuse - we know...but after many requests, we agreed to get blogging again.

We will upload some posts from the project (which were written a while back but just not uploaded) ...and to make up for the long silence, we have some amazing videos which we will be uploading soon!

So watch this space!!