A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
~Henry Brooks Adams
Freewalker volunteers have been focusing their effort towards improving the lives of the children at Kwa-Ford Primary School in New Brighton, with great hopes to eventually touch many of the Schools in the Port Elizabeth area. New Brighton is one of the oldest and the poorest Township of Port Elizabeth, established in 1903, with an unemployment rate of around 80%. There are 300 children at Kwa-Ford Primary, ranging from Grade R (4-5 yrs old) to Grade 7 (11-13 yrs old) and 12 teachers. The children are from underprivileged families in the surrounding, poverty stricken area. The school is trying hard to educate the children in the best possible way, using the extremely limited resources available, with minimal funds.
Volunteer Teaching & Childcare
You do not have to have any teaching experience, just the passion to inspire the next generation! You will be assisting an existing teacher in the classroom, teaching and practicing your English with the Xhosa speaking children and work together to create a more stimulating learning environment for the students. You may shadow a teacher until ready to take classes on your own. Volunteers add their skills and knowledge to an existing school curriculum and events. With foreign presence, the children and the teachers gain from learning about new cultures and experiencing new teaching styles. The volunteers gain by being part of a vibrant culture and learning a new way of living, along with better understanding the hardship these children endure.
Volunteer teaching tasks will include:
• Teach your Country’s culture in the Freewalker International Culture Room
• Assist teachers in composing and evaluating tests/exams
• Help with feeding the learners
• School garden maintenance and harvest
• Caring for and teaching kindergarten students
• Upliftment project throughout the School
• Overseeing recess and play time
• Working & playing with 3-4 year olds in the Crèche, too young for Grade R
• Maintaining the School library
• Design After School Programs for the students
• Aid in fundraising events
• WESSA WWF-SA eco-Schools Involvement
~Volunteers aid in designing and maintaining environmentally sound upliftment projects and aid in development programs for the school.
Leaving Your Mark in their lives and in their classrooms
Freewalker presents the opportunity for you to be the missing link to the outside World for the African Children. Through the building of our International Culture Room, you are able to bring your Country’s history to display and educate the Children. We have created the ideal way for you to teach children (without internet) World knowledge and general awareness. It is Amazing!
School Development Projects
Freewalker Charity
Through the help of local and international volunteers, Freewalker Foundation’s Mission is to create sustainable solutions in the fields of education, conservation, healthcare, and community development. The organisation believes in giving a hand up not a hand out and is trying to instil a sense of sustainability, dignity, pride, and preservation of/for the School in the minds of the next generation of South Africans.
Our Key Goals
• Create stimulating learning environments
• Supply schools with necessary learning tools (libraries, books, computers)
• Assist schools in becoming eco-friendly and overseeing development
• Improve the overall condition of the schools we support
• Improve the health of the children through helping to establish school gardens
• Develop self-sustaining projects for School’s to maintain and grow
Philosophy of Freewalker Foundation
South Africa is a Nation healing from its past struggles. This has left behind poverty stricken areas that have been forgotten, full of people with hope and desire for a better future; however, means to achieve their dreams are limited. Education is the key in developing children, communities and countries. Education is the foundation of a great Nation, and without it, Nations become failed States. The vacuum being diagnosed needs a catalyst to set on fire the great need for education and sustainability within a country, and the assistance to do so. Freewalker creates a bridge between passionate people who want to help and the people who are in need. By educating young minds and instilling a more sustainable perspective on life, Freewalker hopes to encourage and create solutions to enhance the wellbeing of this country’s people and wildlife. Creating an opportunity for volunteers will not only positively influence lives that they touch, but with sustainable solutions, the effects of their input will last for generations to come.