We spent a week in July working with the Pride ‘n Purpose Preschools in Dumphries, South Africa, which Virgin Unite has helped build and run.
Our Teach With Africa/ Town School for Boys team consisted of Flora Mugambi-Mutunga, Town School’s Director of Community Building and Inclusion; Rachel Hollister, Kindergarten Teacher; and Michelle Lawton, Alumni Parent.
Located almost eight hours outside of Johannesburg, in the heart of Rural South Africa, our team shared simple approaches to promoting math, literacy and imaginative play.
We focused on readily accessible local materials that could be used daily in the classrooms we visited.
Simple experiences such as making play dough became the catalyst for counting, letter recognition and shape identification—not to mention much laughter, sensory play and an abundance of smiles!
Teaching workshops alongside the incredibly dedicated educators of Pride ‘n Purpose, our team was inspired by the joy and dedication they witnessed in these schools.
We hope to continue our relationship in the future with a book program to further promote literacy.
Penreach Preschools
The following week, we met with teachers from Penreach preschools in Hazyview, South Africa—an organization that builds capacity with educators and school leaders through skills development, mentoring, and coaching.
One of their goals is to provide professional development for their teachers, and we were fortunate to offer them our workshops. The teachers participated enthusiastically, allowing for new relationships to be established and connections to be made.
We are continuing our correspondence through WhatsApp, and we hope this enables all of us to share our new ideas and classroom activities.
We look forward to learning from the teachers in South Africa and are hopeful the ideas we share will also inspire them.