🇿🇦 🇿🇦 🇿🇦 – South Africa
Proud to share the work done by ou member “The Family Africa“, 2024 Overview
Celebrating 27 Years of Projects in South Africa!Â
2024 was another extremely successful year for The Family Africa and besides celebrating 27 years of work we made excellent progress in each of our projects. We are thankful to all our sponsors who have helped us to continue to assist and empower the vulnerable in South Africa!
Here are some highlights for 2024:
Education
Early Learning Teacher Training
Our teacher training workshops in Johannesburg reach hundreds of teachers and are benefitting thousands of children living in squatter camps and townships.
A new Phonics Workshop was created this year. Two workshops on teaching reading using Phonics was well attended by 67 teachers from 65 different schools. These three hour workshops included an explanation of the technical terms associated with phonics, useful activities and practical tips. Digital resources including training videos, charts and workbooks were made available as well as printed manuals and posters.
Why are 12 year olds still struggling to read? A new workshop for Primary school teachers on why reasons children struggle to read and presenting solutions and activities.  This was a result of being informed  that 180 children could not read in Grades 5-7 in one local school and it seems to be the case in all local schools. The children are now being referred to our reading clinic.
Two “Helping your child to Succeed at School “Workshop s– for over 100 parents.
We also produced and held a new workshop for teachers called “Being a Christian Teacher “, which covers being a Sunday School teacher, a Christian teacher in a private school and cultural awareness and respect for other faiths. Teachers from over 20 Early Learning Centres attended and were presented with our Character and Faith building courses.  This year we also launched our Christian Teachers Association with daily posts on whatsapp.
The Family Africa “Best Teacher Award” was held at the end of the year and at a big celebration and lunch the cash prizes and certificates were awarded to the winners. World Globes which work with a free app were donated to every Early Learning Centre plus well over a total 2000 books.
 Reading Clinic
Twice a week and during holidays  we run our reading clinic for 40-50 children who are school age and struggling with reading. We conduct remedial sessions teaching the basics of sight reading and phonics . This year we also trained 3 extra young people on how to give assessments covering the main aspects of reading so that we can pinpoint weak areas and also track the progress of each child.  Assessments are now being carried out every 6 months.
 South African Accredited Teaching Qualifications
This year we continued with hosting South Africa accredited teacher qualifications at our centre The courses for NQF 4 and 5 have been running for 2 years and the teachers will hopefully graduate soon. We also managed to organize sponsorship for another 6 teachers to complete an accredited computer which includes a monthly stipend while they study (Thanks to Pattern Matched Technologies)
EaziTeach™ Resources and Curriculum
Over 2000 children are benefitting from our Early Learning programmes and we are improving our delivery system as we learn and grow the programme. Besides weekly planners which were revised and updated last year, we now send the resources out to fit with each planner every week so they are easy for the teachers to use.
ECDÂ Â (Early Learning Centres/Preschools) Community Outreach
Our trainer goes out in the community every Tuesday to do follow up and teach reading using our curriculum.  We were able to work with 20 ECDs this year. It is inspiring to see the impact on the teachers as well as the children.
The Family Africa’s Early Learning centre
Our Free of charge Day Care Centre for orphans and vulnerable children has been running now for 20 years and through that time we have been able to help hundreds of vulnerable children receive a free preschool education as well as free school meals. This year we had 42 children who benefitted from this programme and 18 graduated in 2024 and will attend primary school in 2025.
Art classes every week with Inna.  The children have really made progress with their hand eye coordination and creative skills due to the exciting and colourful art projects which Inna does now with both classes.
Mums and Toddler group twice a weekÂ
Encouraging Mums to play and draw with and read to  their children which research shows will help the children to succeed at school.
Primary level schooling for undocumented children.
Classes at our centre and workbooks for homeschooling
Classes and homework assistance for teenagers
During 2024 had 3 teachers teaching 3 afternoons a week and have also at our Saturday school.
One of our teachers has also started classes for adults who want to improve their Maths and English skills in the afternoons. Some days we are running 8 different classes.
The donation of iPads from iStore which has greatly improved access to online educational programmes as well as research projects. The number of students attending has risen and the teenagers are motivated and making measurable progress.
Youth Activities
Chess club
Team Games’ Days
Adult Literacy : English and Maths
Over 100 women participate in four classes every week , covering beginners’ oral English and learning to read and write (Many of our older clients missed out on a proper education during Apartheid ) and simple Mathematics.
Our advanced class covers such things as job interviews, letter writing, and more advanced mathematics.
Health
Support groups for people living with HIV/TB
For the last 23 years we have been running support groups for people living with HIV and TB. We reorganised our groups during 2023 so that we could better focus on our clients’ needs and now we have groups on Monday (HIV + mothers), Tuesday (HIV/TB men’s group) and Friday (HIV/TB clients and new clients) and we continue to find this model is working well.  These groups are running 52 weeks a year.
 Health awareness workshops
These include topics such as HIV, TB, Mother to child transmission of HIV, Antiretrovirals, High Blood pressure, Diabetes, Breast and cervical Cancer. Our new HIV positive members go through our Health Champion course which includes 6 workshops and are run several times a year.
Eye Tests and glasses for children
Over 60 children benefited from free eye tests and those who needed them received free prescription glasses and others received treatment for eye infections and other eye related problems.
Food Garden
We doubled the size of our food garden during 2023 and it is being well cared for by the men from the TB group. Some of them graduated from an agricultural course this year and this has really motivated them to do a better and more productive job. They are also selling the excess vegetables so they receive a little back for their efforts.
Other Training:
Agricultural course
Sign Language courses
Health Campaigns
HIV and TB outreach campaigns in the community with trained volunteers going door to door doing TB screening.
Diabetes Action Campaign
New mobile medical testing unit
Our mobile health testing and screening unit/ gazebo has been successfully doing community outreach every month during 2024 with HIV testing, TB screening and blood pressure tests. It has been particularly successful in targeting men which is often a real challenge in South Africa
16 Day of Activism : Campaign against Domestic and child abuse
Our full time counsellor, Peggy, who was on the organising committee, was once more given an award for her contribution to the events especially due to the success of our mobile health testing unit.
Young African Leaders Workshops
We had another visit from the Young African Leadership Initiative from the national, highly respected University of UNISA .    YALI trains participants from the age of 18-35 from fourteen countries: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Kingdom of Eswatini, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
42 Young African Leaders attended our workshop in July and it was yet again a wonderful opportunity  to showcase our work (the challenges and the reasons for our success) and for our team to interact with young people full of inspiration to make a difference.
iStore Future Leaders Programme
Every year 3 teams are designated to help develop their leadership skills, by identifying a need, finding a solution, planning it and costing it and raising the funds for it and carrying it out as a team. They have done very well and will be completing their work in early 2025
Christmas Events:
Christmas Party for 22 pre schools
Christmas parties for 200 people and their children living with HIV/TB
Graduation and party for our Early Learning Centre
Christmas parties for 180 families from our HIV and TB groups.
Special events:
Celebrating United Nation Days such as Mandela Day, Cervical and Breast Cancer Months, Women’s Day, and International TB Day, World AIDS Day and Heritage Day through awareness campaigns and competitions.
New Year :2 Candlelight celebrations to bring in the New Year
16 Days of Activism against Domestic Abuse
Quick Stats!
Feeding Schemes
Over 28,000 hot meals cooked
80 tons of food collected and distributed in our feeding schemes
180 families receive groceries every week (over 10,000 bags of groceries)
Humanitarian Aid
1000s of items of clothing, toiletries and blankets distributed
Medical supplies including wheel chairs, adult incontinence pads, walking sticks, crutches, bandages etc distributed in Johannesburg and three clinics in Zimbabwe.
Education and Health Stats
102 teachers and over 2000 children from over 70 Early Learning Centres benefit from our Early Learning projects
3000 educational books distributed to Early Learning Centres
Over 100 adult literacy classes taught during the year
Over 600 classes for teenagers in Maths and Science for Grades 5-12.
48 Health  Awareness Workshops covering topics such as HIV, TB, mental Health, Cancer, alcohol abuse etc.
A BIG thank you to all our sponsors who make all these projects possible.
You can contact us by email on familyafrica@mweb.co.za or rachaird@gmail.com
Whatsapp only not calls:  Rachel  +27 826438029
