Update on Life Community Services

In 1999, Life Community Services had one tiny community center (a basic structure with a sheet roof and cement floor, and no walls) from where they reached out to a small group of children, providing basic education, lifeskills training, a healthy meal and social assistance as needed.

Today, Life operates 7 different centers in the poorest township communities around George, serving thousands of children per week. From a central property rented from the municipality they operate a kitchen to provide nourishing meals to the many children who arrive hungry at the community centers each day. Via donations from the public they operate a clothes bank and they have recently launched a successful creche or pre-school called Happy Feet, to prepare children for primary school.

The importance of pre-school education

One of the biggest educational challenges in South Africa is the lack of quality pre-school education, exacerbated by inadequate resources, poor teacher training and overcrowding at many creches and pre-schools. A further contributing factor is the lack of parenting capacity to ensure healthy educational development of toddlers at the pre-school level. This means many children are not prepared for primary school and fall behind from the very first grade. The education department's response to this problem has been to lower the educational standards at schools so that ill-prepared children are better able to cope. However, this postpones to same problem to high school and university levels. Consequently, the education system in South Africa has a disappointing pass rate and a very high dropout rate.

Because of their involvement at the pre-school level through their creche and various children's community centers, Life Community Services does critical work in helping to prepare children for primary school and improving their educational chances and outlook. These important endeavours make Life Community Services a natural partner for the Wild Wings Educational Trust to work with, as one of our ongoing projects. Life Community Services is already involved with parents as well as children, and are in need of support and resources to carry out their mission. We at the Wild Wings Educational Trust have known Life Community Services and their fantastic team of volunteers for many years, and we look forward to finding improved ways of working together toward common goals in improving education for disadvantaged children from our local communities.