This is a request for funding to pay school fees for the children that reside at Oasis Haven South Africa.
The total annual fees for sending these children to school is $27 000
Access to funding has become increasingly difficult in recent years and this has been compounded by the COVID 19 pandemic. This has negatively impacted funding from individuals, corporates and government. Oasis Haven identifies education as one of the key pillars to breaking the cycle and ensuring that once our children leave our care they will be able to become employed and care for themselves and their families. The contributions by Rotary towards education ensures that we can source the best education possible for each child. It is an investment in their future and not just a basic need for their current situation.
The purpose of the grant is to provide quality specialized education to the 20 children in the care of Oasis Haven South Africa in that current year. According to UNICEF the number off orphans and vulnerable children are growing throughout Eastern and Southern Africa. This is due to poverty, HIV/AIDS and the fact that communities are less able to address their own basic needs. This has a direct impact on children being able to attend school.
Oasis Haven is committed to providing and creating an environment where orphaned and vulnerable children are able to thrive educationally. Part of our ethos is that just being in any school is not sufficient as each child has unique and individual abilities. Early childhood development is shown to have a huge impact on a child's academic abilities. As children are admitted to our care at different ages often their early childhood development is lacking. We find the need to therefore continuously adjust the way we do school and where we send children to in order for them to get the assistance they require to catch up academically.
Oasis Haven currently has children in two different schools namely The Kings School Robinhills which caters for 7 of our children. This is a private school in the Robinhills area providing excellent mainstream education and providing a 50% discount. Our annual fees are approximately $14 000 per annum.
Our second school is a government school namely Blairgowrie Primary that accommodates only 1 child from Oasis Haven and where we are receive 100% concession.
In 2021 Oasis Haven formally stared a homeschool centre on site. The purpose of this was two fold. During 2020 our children were homeschooled for 6 months due to COVID 19. For the younger children in pre-school this really meant that they just stayed at home. Additionally huge gaps were identified for 5 of our older children. The reality is that those gaps will not be closed without individual attention and so a homeschool was started employing one teacher for the younger children and making use of our social worker to teach the older ones. The curriculum was obtained through a homeschool education centre called Clonard which has 20 years experience in homeschooling. Homeschooling our children has also meant that they have not had any down time during COVID 19 peaks.
The total cost of the homeschool programme is approximately $13 000 per annum.
13 children are currently educated at home.
Our mission and goal with regards to education is to provide all children with a foundation that can change their trajectory towards one that is prosperous.
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