Educare
Ministries of the Pinetown Methodist Church
In close proximity to first world developments are many unemployed, unskilled people living in extreme poverty. This is where EDUCARE seeks to provide the basic skills, training and the exchange of knowledge necessary for local people to provide the care and education their young children need. Assessments of the children showed that hunger, poor health and physical abuse were commonplace. Communities not only had to survive the abject poverty but also the ravishing AIDS pandemic and one of the highest incidents of child rape in the world. It became apparent that these children needed more than just education, they needed a more holistic level of care.
We started our work in five Methodist centres with buildings being used as crèches during the week. These centres provided food and care for the children and developed to provide basic education. The number of centres grew with children being looked after in whatever premises existed including peoples homes, community buildings and even old shipping containers.
As the number of centres grew, teacher training workshops were established. Teachers attend these workshops on a fortnightly basis and receive lesson plans, training and new ideas. The workshops also provide a vital forum for sharing experiences and offering support and encouragement.
Our Pinetown Methodist Church family and friends collect a wide variety of commonly discarded materials that can be recycled into an array of ingenious teaching aids and play equipment. Teachers receive materials, ideas and techniques during their fortnightly workshops and take them back to the schools where they can have meaningful play and learning at very little cost.
The children in this picture are playing tennis with racquets made from old pantyhose stretched over a wire coat hanger. Tightly wound pantyhose make for a suitable ball. Other equipment made from anti-waste includes skipping ropes, musical instruments, building blocks, water and sand play equipment and even tables and stools among many other things.
Four full time monitors visit in excess of fifty centres each. They assist the teachers in applying the training they received in the workshops as well as continuing to share experiences and hot tips from other centres. The monitors will also discuss areas of need where help might be available.
Despite the rapid growth of EDUCARE centres and the wonderful work being performed by the local teachers, we found that there were many children that had no way of getting to one of the centres. This gave rise to our Wandering Teacher programme. Our full time 'wandering teachers' travel around their areas bringing the classroom to the children.
Our wandering teachers will conduct lessons under trees, in empty buildings or anywhere that is available. Hundreds of children who couldn't afford to get to an EDUCARE centre can now walk over the hill or down the road to meet the wandering teacher.
Many of the children who benefit from the EDUCARE ministry are orphaned and being looked after by a 'Granny'. These wonderful people are not necessarily related to the children they take in but, despite having little or no income themselves, will often take on the responsibility of half a dozen orphans. EDUCARE has established 'Granny Support Groups' where Grannies can meet and share their joys and concerns, comfort and support each other. EDUCARE also runs Granny workshops where skills such as needlework and beadwork are taught enabling the groups to produce goods that can be sold to help support their invaluable work.
As of June 2002 EDUCARE had 220 Centres and over 8500 children receiving care and a start in life that was previously beyond their reach. However, this is only the beginning as there are many more children who still only know hunger, illness, abuse