A real milestone

iThemba Primary School in Cape Town successfully expanded / Space for more than 700 schoolchildren

Worldwide, help alliance currently supports more than 40 projects. The iThemba project in Cape Town, South Africa is one of the best known. Not least thanks to various campaigns such as the “Red Stockings Day” by Austrian Airlines, the sustainable refill cups in iThemba design by Bartesse (LZ Catering) or as the beneficiary project of the RTL Spendenmarathon 2019 with singer Beatrice Egli as celebrity patron. And from this project there is now good news: the iThemba Primary School in Cape Town could be expanded with new school buildings despite Corona!

See the developments in the video:

For more background information on the successful expansion of iThemba Primary School and insights into the project work of the two projects “Future through Education for Township Children” and “First-class Preschool Education for Children“, read the interview with Mona Adler, project portfolio manager at help alliance:

Ms Adler, the iThemba project in South Africa is one of help alliance’s best-known projects. What makes it special? 

The project is a matter of the heart for us. At iThemba, the focus is on educational opportunities for disadvantaged children from socially disadvantaged families in a township – and this has been the case for around 15 years. At that time, the iThemba Pre School was founded in Cape Town as a kindergarten and pre-school. For these children, who have been surrounded by crime, violence and drugs since birth, iThemba is a ray of hope and offers them quality pre-school education.

Children from townships are often delayed in terms of development due to the lack of early childhood education. In addition, most of the children in the immediate environment do not speak English. This is where we come in with the preschool and offer them not only lessons in the usual subjects such as reading and writing, but also support in social skills. Close cooperation with the families is also very important. However, when the children moved to a primary school, it was often difficult to find a school place for them or the children had to travel very far to school. There was also a lack of appropriate support for the children, so that many developmental steps were taken backwards.

This was when you had the idea of expanding the school?

Yes, exactly, we wanted to build a primary school directly in the township, which would tie in seamlessly with the preschool. Thanks to the tireless commitment of our project coordinator Susanne French, we even managed to get the Ministry of Education on board and to get the surrounding communities excited about the project. It was also particularly important for us to involve people from the townships during the construction phase. For example, we gave preference to hiring workers from the townships. We are very pleased that, due to the high demand for school places, we now have a school with over 700 school places. This is a real milestone for the iThemba project.

“We are very pleased that, due to the high demand for school places, we now have a school with over 700 school places. This is a real milestone for the iThemba project.”

– Mona Adler, help alliance project portfolio manager

Building a school is a major project. How did you go about it?

Since the need for school places was extremely high from the start, we built the school in various stages. That way, the children could continue to go to school. First, the school blocks were built for the younger children and then later for the higher grades. Then in 2018, with the completion of the first phase, we were able to open the school and enroll the first 105 children. The following year, another 105 children were enrolled.

This was followed in 2020 by phases 2 and 3, with the construction of the remaining school blocks and a science section. The Corona pandemic presented us with major challenges in the process. The construction work had to be interrupted in the meantime due to the lockdowns, but the school blocks were still completed on time.

Does that mean a higher capacity now?  

Exactly, the iThemba Primary School could accept 210 new children starting with the 2021 school year. A total of 560 children can now go to school. Our long-term vision is to provide access to quality education for over 1,000 children. In addition, it is planned that further education will also be offered to young people and adults from the townships in the afternoons and evenings.

That sounds impressive! Will this be the last part of help alliance funding the project or are further joint steps already planned?

There are still concrete needs on the ground, so we will continue to support the project. The next step is the urgent construction of an administration building, as classrooms are currently still used for the teachers and the school administration. The classrooms should, of course, be released as soon as possible so that more children can be accommodated. It is scheduled to start the constructions this year. We are also currently planning to move the final class of the Pre-School to the Primary School premises. This has several advantages: On the one hand, it will be possible to accommodate another 70 children in the Pre-School classes and on the other hand, this will also transfer the ongoing operation of the Pre-School classes to the financial responsibility of the South African government. Because this is particularly important for us. In all our projects, we want to transfer responsibility to the respective country and the local population in perspective. Only in this way, development cooperation can be successful in the long term.

We are pleased that we have already succeeded in this with the iThemba Primary School. The government has now even recognized the school as a model school and the concept is to be extended to other schools. This has been achieved in particular thanks to the two project coordinators Susanne French and Christian Haude and their strong local partners, who have held numerous meetings with government and community representatives in recent years and fought day and night for the school.

Finally, a personal question. What fascinates you about help alliance’s project work?

I realize again and again that our projects are only so successful thanks to the trusting and committed work of the Lufthansa Group employees together with the people and partners on site. With their different experiences, knowledge and skills, they complement each other wonderfully.