A better future for African children!

16. June is International Day of the African Child

Africa is one of the poorest continents in the world. The International Day of the African Child reminds us of the poor state of educational policy as it currently stands and the consequences of this: a life lived in extreme poverty with little chance of escape. Our educational projects based in Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa have been set up to enable as many children as possible to be able to look forward to a better future, thanks to the education which they receive via the projects.

The Soweto Uprising

The commemorative day 'International Day of the African Child' has its roots in South African Apartheid and the pupil's uprising of 1976. At the time, protests were taking place across the country in response to racist educational policy: this racist rhetoric dictated that only the language of the white upper classes should be spoken in schools. The dark-skinned pupils saw this as robbing them of their educational opportunities and their chance to succeed academically. Sadly, the uprisings had many victims.

Continous issues in educational policy sector

Unfortunately, even today there are still extreme grievances where the educational system is concerned. One of the major issues is the low budget assigned to the educational policy sector as well as the unfair distribution of these funds.

The well-off are able to afford to send their children to private school and send their children abroad. The majority of the population are forced to stay where they are, with no access to education, as the infrastructure including school buildings, furniture and teaching staff is lacking.

Educational project in South Africa: the Nelson Mandela No-Moscow School

Despite the prominence of the location, many inhabitants of Nelson Mandela's home town live in poverty. As such, getting a good education here was and is difficult: The local No-Moscow school was badly in need of renovation. Many of the classrooms couldn't be used because there was a risk that the roof would fall in at any minute. We wanted to change this and so we started a project in 2012, in keeping with Nelson Mandela's vision.

Eine neue Schule in der Heimat von Nelson Mandela

He who does not know, will believe everything.

If the population is better educated, then they will also have access to more information.

The people are not compelled to believe everything that politicians tell them and become more mature.

They can then take their future into their own hands.

Helping people help themselves

We want to use our projects to empower these people to help themselves, rather than make them dependent on aid from others as these projects can only run successfully if the people on site are also fully behind the project and, when this happens, we can really be the catalyst for positive change. And, in actual fact, the people local to the area are actually most aware of the situation and the appropriate solutions.

Amina Zwindila will ihr Land durch eine eigene Schule weiterbringen

This is also the case with our projects in Nigeria. Two schools were founded by the local people who had both great vision and generous hearts. What started out as just a few schools, are, today, two esteemed educational institutions which teach over 1400 children to read and write.

Three new projects in Tanzania

We are currently wokring on three new projects in Africa: a new children's home connected to a school has been built on Zanzibar and, at the foot of Kilimanjaro, an extremely rural area, 500 children will receive two new schools in which they will really be able to learn effectively.