Access to Education

We have a wish to establish a Creche/Pre-School within the proximity of our village so that our children do not have to be exposed to walking longer distances to have access to education facilities.

26 February 2024
It was heart heartbreaking to hear the ECD level children (aged 3 years to five years) are walking up to in excess of 8 km to the nearest primary school offering ECD classes. The immediate solution needed is clearly to establish our own ECD classes in the village. Tete Sally Mapungwana and Mr. Ed Mudzimu -I will be reaching out to you for guidance on all the ministry and other related requirements so that we fast track this project. Anyone else with input that help us establish the ECD classes, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.
On reflection I was also pleased by two things:
1- Access to running water will obviously be one of the requirements for establishing the ECD classes. This then dovetails nicely into the other objective for 2024!
2- While temporary solutions for running water can be made so that the ECD classes can start asap, the medium-term solution would be to drill a borehole. This would then require power to be available, which dovetails into my own wider vision for the use of the hall: Once we have power on site, we can easily avail internet access. With internet access, we then bring the rest of the world to the village! This will be a game changer in my mind. The impact that the exposure will have will be felt in virtually all areas of the village.
While on the topic of Power, we have a sub-committee that is liaising with the Rural Electrification Authority (REA) to avail power from the power utility to households in the village. The latest quotation that we have is for USD31k to connect the 1st 15 households within a 1 km radius of where the transformer would be situated near the community hall. I am wondering if this is the smartest option for us given declining prices for solar options and the fact that with the REA route, there will be continued future costs to pay for power consumed whereas with the solar options, it is a one-off cost. Engineers and electricians and others experienced in this area – please send us your thoughts and suggestions. Borrowing from one of favourite Biblical principles of “What is in your hand?”, I believe that God has blessed with the ever-present very hot weather, which comes with never-ending long periods of sunshine! Let us see how best to harness this gift!!!

4 August 2024
UPDATE ON THE ECD CLASS OPTIONS
I had a meeting with the Primary School Headmaster where he advised that while the primary school would be willing to be the mother school for the envisaged local ECD classes, this would be on condition that we engage ECD teachers that have undergone a full three year Government teachers training program AND we would need to pay those teachers at the NEC stipulated rates to avoid being sued in future. With help from several colleagues we eventually identified the correct NEC for such teachers - they are in grade C1 on the attached and unfortunately the required minimum wages are not affordable for the village. Thus for the time being, we have had to shelf this project until we find a break through to the challenge.