Last Day of NaBloPoMo!

Today is the final day of NaBloPoMo - the challenge of blogging each day for a month.

I have to prepare for a charity stall tomorrow and am wrapping some of the prizes for the lucky dip!

I am glad to have completed NaBloPoMo! I found some great new blogs to follow. I will catch up on reading those blogs, once I have wrapped the rest of the gifts! At times it was challenging to write a post each day. Well done to all the other bloggers who did NaBloPoMo this month!

Today: Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure published in South Africa!

Today, South Africa's Minister for Basic Education published the final Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure! I recently posted about Equal Education's campaign on this. The final Norms and Standards can be seen here.

Equal Education published the following statement on its facebook page: 

Equal Education's General Secretary Brad Brockman has released his initial thoughts on the Final Norms and Standards For School Infrastructure 

You can find them here (https://twitter.com/BrockmanBrad) and here (https://twitter.com/equal_education)

In summary:
1. There are shorter timeframes in the final regulations; and better prioritisation of the worst off schools. 
2. The draft stated that MECs must provide implementation plans for improving school infrastructure in line with norms and standards in 6 months, the final version gives them a year. Why the delay?
3. Its also problematic that these implementation plans are not required to be public, communities have a right to know this information; particularly when targets are aimed to be met by and what is planned for their school.

Review of the final version is still on-going and a more in-depth analysis will follow in the coming days.

For now this is a time of reflection on a ultimately successful campaign to have the Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga pass legally binding school infrastructure regulations.

Congratulations, to all our members who have campaigned with focus, discipline, and without tire for the last 3 years. We did it! (You can read a full recap here: http://www.equaleducation.org.za/campaigns/minimum-norms-and-standards/overview).

Thanks also to the Legal Resources Centre and the Equal Education Law Centre for all their work in getting us to this point.

Forward with the struggle for equality in education!

#BuildTheFuture #FixOurSchools

It is great that the Norms and Standards were published on the date promised! It will be interesting to continue to follow Equal Education's work, to see their full reaction to the final Norms and Standards.

Grateful to those who help children

I am not from the USA, but I could not fail to notice all the posts for Thanksgiving! It just happened that the facebook status for my charity, CHW, was based on thankfulness and being grateful today. This was a nice coincidence! Here is the status:

We are grateful to all of our supporters and volunteers! This photo is from New Life in Ghana, the first organisation we started working with. The children are siblings and came to live at the orphanage earlier this year. They are sponsored by two of CHW's supporters. CHW raised the money to build the playground that they are in. Thank you so much to each of you who make it possible for us to support different children's projects around the world!

Children from a Home in Romania Singing about Pies!

I just found a great video of children at one of the children's homes my charity supports in Romania, singing at a Pie Festival! This was two winters ago, so the children have grown a lot since then! They are singing about how pies can have fruit and vegetables in them!

My charity is trying to fundraise to help sponsor a carer's salary at this home, so that there are enough people to work with these children. It seems that people prefer to donate items, like clothes and toys, but if there are not enough staff to work with the children, then the home will not be able to continue. The children have faced a lot of difficulties in their short lives, but the home they are living in now is very nice. They get food, medical care and go to school each day. Our stall on Sunday will help to fundraise towards this appeal for the home.

It was nice to find this video again! Apparently the children had only known that they were going to have to sing at the Pie Festival a few days beforehand, so they were not able to practice too much, but they did so well!

Open Letter to South Africa's President from Equal Education Members

This Friday, South Africa's Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, is due to publish Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure. These will set out the most basic standards for infrastructure that schools in South Africa must meet. Today, the organisation Equal Education, shared the following video on youtube. It shows schoolchildren reading an open letter to President Zuma, on why he needs to ensure that Minister Motshekga goes ahead and publishes the Minimum Norms and Standards.

Earlier in the year, Minister Motshekga released a draft of the Minimum Norms and Standards. However, the draft was too vague, and did not give proper details of the standards schools would need to meet. To understand more about this, as well as to learn more about Equal Education's campaign, here is an earlier video:

To gain a further insight into the standards of some schools, it is worth watching Equal Education's video of a Solidarity Visit to schools in the Eastern Cape, lead by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba:

The standards between schools in South Africa varies greatly. I attended Public Hearings held by Equal Education in Cape Town, back in March. Teenagers from schools in Cape Town told everyone of how their schools lacked science labs, libraries and sometimes functioning toilets. However, there were gasps and exclamations of shock from them, when they were shown some photos of schools in the Eastern Cape.

There is a countdown to the publication of Minimum Norms and Standards on Equal Education's facebook page. I am waiting with anticipation to see what will happen on Friday!

Resources for a School in Argentina

It has just been confirmed - I will definitely be working on some projects in Argentina next month! It will be great to go back.

I will also have the chance to distribute items to an under-resourced primary school, in the province of Cordoba. I have brought donated items to this school before, and the children always seemed so pleased with the new stationery, and would crowd around the teacher who was giving out the items to each class!

Some items a volunteer collected for this school a couple of years ago.

I am based in London, and if anyone would like to contribute some items for the school, I would need to receive them by 6 December. I know this is all such short notice, but it has only just been confirmed! If you do want to help, you can either leave a comment below, or contact me through the details on the "about" page. Any items will be so much appreciated!

If anyone has any ideas either of where I could get some suitable school resources in bulk, or where I could advertise the collection, please let me know. I wish I had a bit more time to arrange all this!

I think of all the resources that were available to me at my school, and how little these children have in comparison. I really hope to be able to collect some good resources for the children at this school.

Travel Theme: Fragrant

I have been reminded of a day in Muizenberg, Cape Town, back in March, thanks to finding Ailsa's weekly travel themes! These week's theme is "fragrant". (Follow that last link, if you want to take part too!)

One early morning, I joined the founder of Seawind Educare, Rita, for a surf walk, along with children (and their parents) from the Educare's three creches. The salty fragrance of the sea air was nice and refreshing!

Surf Walk along the beach at Muizenberg

I like the fragrance of the sea and the beach. It reminds me of my early student days, as I did my undergrad degree at Aberystwyth, by the sea. However, I can honestly say that I never walked along the beach at around eight in the morning, when I was a student, like I did for Rita's surf walk in South Africa!

The beach at Aberystwyth

After the surf walk, Rita had arranged to take the children to a nearby resort, with a playground, bouncy castles, face painting and other activities.

Bouncy castle, near Muizenberg

It could hardly be described as "fragrant",  but the "plasticy" smell of the bouncy castle did remind me of when I was little and played on bouncy castles. So whilst not a particularly nice scent in itself, it did bring back memories! It was great to see the children enjoying themselves.

I am really glad I could join Rita for the surf walk. She does amazing work with  disadvantaged children in Cape Town, and has continued with it all, despite the fact that it has been quite a challenging year (more about that here). I admire all that Rita does to help children!

I found Ailsa's travel themes though Lucid Gypsy's blog. I am grateful for this, as it was nice to think back to that day at Muizenberg beach.