July 2021 has seen a Mandela month like no other South Africa could ever have imagined. Society and government had to contend with the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic coupled with rioting and looting of our beautiful country. It is in this fray that different sectors of society banded together to support law and order. Undaunted by this chaos, the Western Cape Education Department’s @ Home Learning Yeboneers continued to visit our learners in their homes to mediate the vital process of education through teaching language and maths.
The Val de Vie Foundation celebrated Mandela Day on July 30th by assisting the Western Cape Education Department plus Hope Through Action and their seven partners to lead the @ Home Learning program. We also sponsored 12,500 specially produced copies of the bilingual Nal’ibali newspaper to be distributed through 67 home visits per each of our eight hubs and 125 trained interns who read and shared the stories with our learners and their caregivers. These colourful 16-page supplements are in a combination of English/ Afrikaans and English/ IsiXhosa with carefully curated stories and games to improve literacy and encourage a love of reading. To read the supplement click here.
Our mission was to engage with learners from Grade R to Grade 4 in under-resourced communities covering a broad swathe of our Cape Winelands from Stellenbosch through to Franschhoek, Paarl, Mbekweni, Bonnievale, Rawsonville and Malmesbury.
We were also honoured to be donated 5000 books from Nal’ibali worth R150,000 which will be used in our @ Home Learning program through 2021. Saleem Mukuddem CFO Nal’ibali said: “ These age-appropriate mother tongue books were donated to the Val de Vie Foundation and the @ Home Learning program as they shared their vision and purpose of providing content to our most vulnerable children in a way that was guaranteed to be used, read and treasured.”
HONOURING OUR HEALTHCARE WORKERS
While one of the Val de Vie Foundation’s main focus areas is on education we could not fail to recognise the incredible work done by our healthcare workers to not only vaccinate us against the deadly COVID-19 virus but to also provide ongoing COVID-19 testing for those in need.
We are delighted to have been able to organize 100 scrumptious lunches of lasagne, salad and cupcakes for the wonderful team at TC Newman Community Day Clinic in Paarl East. This late celebration will happen on 5 September, catered by our Café Frenchie at Rembrandt centre. As many Val de Vie residents will attest, TC Newman has provided each and every community member from Paarl East through to Val de Vie Estate with caring and professional attention as we all lined up to get our ‘jabs’. We will never forget your kindness and dedication. Thank you, TC Newman.
