Valentyn van der Merwe, SOS’s head of innovation, and Suzette Oosthuizen, Helping Hand’s head of centers and national branches, at the handover of the laptops. (Photo provided)
On Thursday, the Solidarity School Support Center (SOS) handed over seven computers to Solidarity Helping Hand’s community project, Ons Plek.
This donation is the first step to give 230 learners at the Ons Plek after-school center access to the Wolkskool’s high-quality Afrikaans teaching of thousands of short video lessons, assessments, workbooks and worksheets.
“With the computers, learners will also be able to use the internet and can take advantage of many other educational resources that are available there.
“We believe the donation is an important contribution to the continued success of Ons Plek as an educational community project, which serves children of all backgrounds in African cultural communities,” said Valentyn van der Merwe, head of innovation at the SOS.
Suzette Oosthuizen, Helping Hand’s head of centers and national branches, welcomed the donation.
“This initiative is once again proof that different institutions in the Solidarity Movement, each with their unique strengths, are teaming up to make a real difference in communities.
“The SOS’s Cloud School has helped our after-school learners to improve their performance noticeably.
“However, the challenge was that there were not enough computers available for all our learners at Helping Hand’s six Ons Plek centres. We are truly grateful for the computers gifted to us today to fill this void. For our children it is life-changing, it creates hope and it makes learning easier.”
According to Oosthuizen, development, training and education are essential for Helping Hand to ensure long-term prosperity in communities.
“Each child’s potential can be developed according to his ability when a baby has a safe environment, a toddler is developed with an outcome-based program and support is offered in school subjects. In this way, a door is opened to further qualifications, which leads to an honorable job and a necessary contribution in their own communities,” she says.
Any donations of equipment, such as old computers and laptops in working order, can be made to the SOS to further support the project.
Feel free to send an e-mail [email protected] for more information on this.
