NEWS, VIEWS & OTHER INTERESTING THINGS

Our 2016 Big Give campaign focused on securing support to expand our literacy tutor programme and thanks to the generous support of our campaign and pledge champions, the Waterloo Foundation and the Brenley Trust, we were able to introduce the Literacy Tutor programme into Wemmershoek Primary School in Franschoek in 2017.

Twenty-nine youth from the community surrounding Wemmershoek applied and 19 were accepted and participated in formal training before being matched with learners in Grades 2 to 4 in February 2017. Our LTs work in a dedicated reading classroom which has provided a wonderfully bright and inspiring place for learners to engage with the literacy games, books and other materials that are part of our help2read book boxes.

We soon saw the desperate need for literacy support across all grades at the school, and so the programme extended itself to provide reading help and literacy support to 190 learners from Grades 1 to 7.

In March, our Literacy Tutors joined their counterparts from Paarl and Wellington and all 42 participated in a wonderful workshop hosted by help2read and delivered by Renee Lighton providing simple, practical tips and ideas for how to engage children in literacy based activities. The workshop was a huge success with the unanimous verdict being:

I learnt that you have to love and be determined to help children grow. Using lots of games with words, magazines and other literature around us can be helpful aids to assist the learning process. … I learnt how to turn waste into educational games and assist the learners to improve their English language and keep them interested and entertained when they are bored.

In April, all 42 Literacy Tutors attended training with local NGO Nal’ibali and learnt how to deliver exciting extramural community reading clubs to further encourage a love of reading. Our Literacy Tutors were eager to start Reading Clubs at Wemmershoek Primary and held their first after school Reading Club at the beginning of June. Over 60 learners attending and we are looking forward to seeing how this grows further in the rest of the year.

We have to thank all our supporters for enabling the expansion of this programme. In this Youth month, the power and potential of our literacy tutors is so evident and we believe they have a strong role to play – as teachers, mentors, community leaders and role models for the children of the future South Africa.