Township Education

Michael Tyhali is Principal of the Ukhanyo School (left)

“I am enormously encouraged by your commitment to help us find a way forward for this school, which I hope will give us a key to dealing with this crisis of apathy and mismanagement that affects so many of our schools.” -Helen Zille, former Minister for Education, Western Cape, now Mayor of Cape Town.

The Ukhanyo School in Masiphumelele offers several challenges. Originally built for 400 primary school children in Grades 1-8, it now serves about 1200 students. Teachers are overwhelmed and supplies are scarce. The Department of Education has recently built a new High School for the community which opened in January 2006 and is suffering from severe disciplinary problems.

With the help of both paid professionals and volunteers, Masiphumelele Corporation funds the school’s sports program including Physical Education in class time and an after-school sports program. Nceba Jonase, a South African trained by Sports Coaches Outreach, (SCORE) teaches physical education to Grades 1-7 and runs an after-school sports program for both the primary and the high school. He is assisted by Patrick Donker. In 2007 we intend to level the school sports field because it is uneven and dangerously sprinkled with bricks and rubble

We offer a uniform to any student whose parents are to poor to buy one and hand out about 100 uniforms a year.

There is not much we can do to enhance the primary and high schools with their overcrowded classrooms and demotivated teachers. Our focus is therefore on the students rather than the institutions and we provide a place (the library) where they can go to read, to use a computer, for after-school homework assistance by volunteers, or just to study in a place that is more conducive to learning than their shack.

HIV/AIDS has reached pandemic proportions in South Africa. Without access to life-prolonging medicines, 600 South Africans die every day. The average life expectancy has dropped from 65 to 47 years – two decades behind people in comparable countries. This crisis has been exacerbated by the incomprehensible delay of the government to provide access to treatment programs. Masi Corp has been deeply involved in educating township children about HIV and how to avoid it. By partnering with the Pulpit Theatre, we ran an extensive program in which every child in the local primary school attended an AIDS awareness program. The course was run by actors and facilitators who used storytelling techniques traditional in Xhosa culture to illustrate messages that, until now, have been taboo. The Pulpit Theatre also works with the Sizophila Group, a local coalition of HIV-positive Xhosa-speakers who bravely face the stigma associated with AIDS by speaking publicly about the disease, encouraging a more open dialogue about the epidemic.

Volunteer Caroline Brawner teaches the after school computer course