The program was initiated by a group of South Africans who now reside in Australia. The intention was to give back to their community of origin focusing on building resilience in primary school aged children. Group members chose Collingwood Primary as the focus of their investment due to past and present affiliations with the school. In collaboration with the school, the program was designed with the purpose of instilling hope, joy, and confidence in learners through extracurricular activities.
The principles of the program are:
- Children learn best when learning is FUN and learning is not confined to the classroom.
- Utilise local community members as volunteers
- Start small to ensure minimal disruption to learning
- Measure and report on the impact of the program
- Ownership by the school community will ensure sustainability
- Accountability and transparency will encourage ongoing commitment from donors
Soccer, music and board games were identified as additional programs that would be incorporated into the schools existing extracurricular program. The group members reached out to expats across the globe requesting contribution of $25 or more. The funds were collected by group members and transferred to the school bank account. The school accepted full responsibility for the management of the funds and the purchasing of the necessary equipment and payment of stipends to local volunteers. Thank you, letters were sent to all donors to acknowledge their contribution, to the program. The school bursar provider regular updates on the status of funds received and spent.
The program commenced in the second term through to the fourth term with activities taking place weekly. Soccer coaches, Kyle Davies and Jeremy Oliver were selected to train the soccer teams. Fixtures against other schools were drawn up and matches were played weekly. Kurt Holmes, a local music teacher was engaged to provide music lessons. A choir was established, and a school song was developed which was introduced at the 2022 prize giving ceremony. Board games were introduced including table tennis with this program attracting a lot of interest from learners. Teachers were allocated supervision duty during these times and in some instances were directly involved in the activities with the learners.
Board games, craft activities and music lessons have continued in 2023. Soccer skills has been set aside as construction of the new school impacted the space available for outdoor activities.
Ongoing liaison occurred between the school and the group members with an evaluation meeting held in May2023 with the leadership team of the school and representatives of the group. At this meeting, there was a resounding agreement that the program had been successful and that it was something that the school wanted to continue. It was agreed that group members would withdraw their direct involvement in sourcing funds from donors. Instead, the school would drive this as they now had a template to support the sustainability of the program. The group members will in their individual capacity continue to support the school as an when they have capacity to do so. The group will now focus on knowledge and skills development by drawing on the expertise of expats and offering this as an online initiative to Collingwood Primary and the broader community.
