Norwegian Liaison Committee’s Project – Rotary Club of Wynberg, Cape Town SA

Vision:

To uplift the scholastic experience and opportunity for children of schools in impoverished areas by providing assistance in accordance with the needs of the learners.

Our Plan:

To connect with and utilise contacts in overseas countries who are prepared to assist with funding and bursaries in identified schools in the Wynberg Rotary area.
To work together with the schools and their executives in identifying needs and providing assistance with educational and sporting facilities.
To provide bursaries for learners whose access to funds is limited, for the furthering of their education, through to tertiary level. The success of the ongoing support from the 2 Norwegian schools is mostly based on the annual visits by teachers and students who experience directly the continuous need for assistance.

Our Norwegian Partners

Local Beneficiaries

Die Duine Primary School
Lotus River Primary School
Montagu Gift Primary School
Perivale Primary School
Stephen Road Primary School
Fairmount Secondary School
Zeekoevlei Primary School

How it all Began

In 1999 a member of Kopervik Rotary Club, District 2250 in Norway, approached Wynberg Rotary Club. Magne Hallaråker, who at that time was the chairman of the International Committee of Kopervik Rotary Club, was also the principal of Åkrehamn Technical College. Through his school and with donations from his rotary club, he managed to organize a container of dictionaries, as well as funds enough to purchase 4 computers and 2 printers in South Africa.

It was suggested to the club to start a school project for a few schools on the Cape Flats, and Ken Williams, who was a member of the Rotary Club of Wynberg and a retired principal of Stephen Road Primary School, assisted with contacts to his former school, as well as to Montagu’s Primary School. These two schools were the beginning of a project, which has become a very successful upliftment for some of the schools in Grassy Park / Lotus River area.

Selected learners from the first two schools were sponsored to visit one of the donor schools in Norway to further broaden their horizons or simply to see how the problems of education are being addressed in Norway and bring these insights back with them to Cape Town. On occasions teachers and principals have been sent to the London IT in Education Expo to attend talks and workshops on utilising advanced technology in planning lessons or using technology in the classrooms for the enhancement of lesson quality. This was sponsored by one of the donors.

With the huge problem of gangs and drug abuse in the poorer communities, sports equipment for four codes has been provided as part of the schools’ curriculum and for extra mural activities. It is envisioned that inter-school matches will be arranged in order to keep the interest alive and to increase the level of participation in the communities linked to the various schools.

And where are we now? Over R6 600 000 has been raised (just over R600 000 in 2019/2020) for IT equipment, libraries, etc and for direct bursaries for over 5000 learners.

Additional Benefits that have flowed to the program as a result of this project

Active involvement of MOT in our schools,
Development of the annual North South IT in Education Conference, hosted by the Technical Colleges of Cape Town and False Bay College.
Fostering relationship between Rotary Club of Wynberg members and our Norway Partners where friendships have grown with multiple trips between countries by members of our club.

We also arranged for one of our principals to attend the Principal’s Academy (held at UCT Business School during the working year), which he completed with 65% aggregate!