Tutoring Programme

One of our entrepreneurial projects here in South Africa is to evaluate the feasibility of a tutoring program in Ocean View. In other words, we’re looking at the need, what’s already in place, what a tutoring program in Ocean View would look like and how we would begin to set one up.

The Need

A tutoring program is needed in Ocean View for a few reasons. First, life is a struggle for the many residents here. Some common problems are unemployment, widespread drug use, alcoholism, gangs, prostitution and violence. And because of its history and everything they’ve been through, there is no hope or ambition for the future. Few students think about their futures at all, and schools don’t prepare students for life after school, whether it’s college or an occupation.

The other problem is students get done with school at 1:30 or 2 p.m. and then don’t have anything to do. And for them, that free time and boredom is dangerous. To quote the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, “boredom is the root of all evil.”

Over the past three weeks we’ve been traveling to tutoring programs in other townships and observing them. We’ve seen two so far, and while they were radically different, they both taught us incredible lessons.

Heideveld Tutoring Program

Last week we visited a program in Heideveld, a poor coloured township near Mitchell’s Plain. It’s similar but a little poorer than Ocean View—the kind of township where kids live in shacks made of old train cars and might not get two meals a day. Nearly every child comes from a broken family, and drugs, alcoholism and gangs are rampant.

This program started only a month ago, but it already serves 20-50 students each afternoon and it’s making an incredible impact on the community. We walked into the small church building to kids playing badminton in the sanctuary. The founder of the program, a man named Quiton, directed us to a small back room where stacks of books were piled on a table and students worked at old desktop computers. He told us that everything we saw was donated.

Me, Quiton, Amanda and Katie on our visit to the Heideveld tutoring program

In fact, when we asked how he gets funding, Quiton admitted the program exists because of faith alone. He decided to start the program about a year ago, when a visiting pastor from Brazil inspired him (that pastor was also the one that introduced the kids to badminton, which has taken off.) Quiton recognized the need, felt a calling to do something about it, and quit his job. Though it was scary, he said said from there everything fell into place. He attributes it all to his perseverance and obedience to God’s will. He said if you know God is in control, the right doors will open for you. His faith—and the way he’s been rewarded for it—was inspiring. It’s amazing how much God can provide if we just listen.

After Quiton submitted to his calling, the program started with an assessment of the community. Quiton considered every factor—high drop out rates, lack of counseling at the high school level, low self-esteem that leads to drug problems, suicide and teenage pregnancy, high unemployment, lack of knowledge. He described it as a cycle: parents are unemployed and don’t know how to take care of their kids, so their kids get involved with drugs, they don’t know how to look for work, they have kids as teenagers, and then they don’t know how to take care of their own kids. It sounded very similar to Ocean View.

The program operates out of the church with the help of five volunteers– all unemployed women. They help students with homework, literacy skills, computer skills, career skills like how to write a CV or do an interview, and mentoring. He also connects participants with local internships and jobs in the community. He has connections in the business world, and when companies or social development organizations have jobs available they’ll send applications to the program.

He said that life skills make up another important aspect of the program, especially in a township where there are so many severe social problems. He travels to schools and speaks in churches about parenting, how to run a home, motivating a child academically and staying off drugs. He also does crisis work, and he serves sandwiches and other food every afternoon—again, all of it donated by the community.

It’s been a win-win situation for the church. Although he encourages participants to attend their own churches, the church has grown rapidly because of the program. And the tutoring program is quickly outgrowing the space. He’s in the process of attaining a more permanent space to house the program—an old government building that has been abandoned for three years. When asked how he’ll pay, he didn’t even stop for a second. “God will provide.”

“This is my passion. It’s where I feel God calling me, and every day I feel him reminding me of it.”

The South Africa Education and Environment Programme

The second tutoring program we looked at was drastically different. SAEP has been around for 18 years and has hundreds of participants. We found it through my cousin Anna, who is friends with its founder Norton Tennille. Unfortunately Norton forgot about our meeting on Monday, but we were still able to speak to his co-founder, Jane, and the head of its Hope Programme, Bongali.

The program started when Norton, an environmental lawyer and graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, decided that he was bored with his job and moved to South Africa. In 1994 he began teaching environmental lessons in schools. But students started asking for help with other subjects as well. Norton gave his interns the task of tutoring the kids in all subjects, and SAEP was born.

SAEP operates out of a small office in downtown Cape Town, but it serves the large township Phillipi. They describe it as a township where more than half of working-age people are unemployed, and many households rely on small government grants as their only source of income. The majority of Philippi’s residents live in informal wood and iron structures without electricity or running water. The community struggles with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, crime, teenage pregnancy, gangsterism, substance abuse and domestic violence.

The program operated with volunteers—mostly students from the University of Cape Town—until this year, when they decided to start paying tutors. Most of them were teachers from other African countries who were unable to find work. However, Jane told us that this model ended up unsustainable they are currently in a financial crisis and will probably return to the volunteer model next year.

Again, Jane and Bongali stressed the importance of life skills. They provide more than just academic tutoring—also study skills, public speaking, interview skills, and a holistic program. Since most of their students come from unbelievably rough backgrounds they have an employed social worker for big problems. They also provide snacks in between sessions.

They also stressed the importance of working with the schools and linking their program to the school curriculum, especially since they operate within the schools themselves. They said they do have to watch out for some teachers that decide they don’t need to teach because the students are learning from the program, teachers that feel threatened, or teachers that think the program just provides more hassle and confusion. They said proper written contracts and good relationships with the teachers and principals are essential.

One interesting idea is they bring in people from the township who were successful. They said it’s a good mechanism to let them know that they can succeed, that they can rise above their situation.

The Hope Programme is most applicable to what we’ll be doing. The Hope Scholars Programme invests in an intensive, holistic programme for a small group of promising students and leaders, selected with the help of the schools and teachers, starting in Grade 9 and following them throughout their high school careers. The academic focus is on maths, the sciences, and English. The goal is to prepare the learners, academically and personally, for success at university and beyond.

Overall, this has been a very inspiring experience. We hope to observe a few more programs during our time here, and I’m sure we’ll learn from each one.

--Mary