A message of thanks and an update on all the wonderful things happening at African Angels.

AFRICAN ANGELS NEWSLETTER
September 2020

When School broke up for the end of term holidays on 18 March 2020 we had no idea that a week later President Ramaphosa would declare a State of Disaster due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lock the country down. The last few months have seen a complete change in the education of our African Angels.

In this newsletter we will share our Principal’s perspective on education under these circumstances and demonstrate our focus on the welfare of not only our learners and their families but also the wider Chintsa community.

Covid-19 : A Principal’s Perspective

Principal, Sharon Edworthy’s whole approach to the pandemic was to ensure that the impact on her school children’s education would be minimised as far as humanly possible. She and her staff have dedicated the past five months to making this a reality. This is her story of how they have managed to do just that.

The Education Challenges

As soon as hard lockdown ended, our teachers were creating modules and setting work via whatsapp, but each of the learners put in different levels of effort. Some families were struggling to feed themselves, so education was the least of their priorities.  Others did not have a suitable learning environment at home with many people living together in a small space.

When school was allowed to open again on the 1st of June, 45 days of school had been affected by the lockdown and the learners were at varying stages of their education. In addition, parents were starting to get nervous about the spread of the virus in the community.  The stress of being unable to keep their children safe and adequately fed was also weighing heavily on them. I have never before been asked for food – the situation really was quite dire and we couldn’t ignore it.

We knew we had to do something drastic to keep our learners healthy and help them catch up. We needed to keep the high school scholarship hopes of the intermediate phase children alive.

The African Angels solution

To take control of the situation, we decided to bring the twenty girls in grade 5, 6 and 7 into the existing girls’ hostel. We also started a boys’ hostel and brought in thirteen grade 6 and 7 boys, the maximum number we felt we could cope with whilst adhering to all Covid-19 protocols. The idea was to keep as many intermediate phase learners as possible permanently isolated at school. This way the parents could be assured of their safety and well being and we could keep the momentum to catch up academically. In fact, while many schools were reducing their day to minimise the stress of the new situation on staff and learners, here at African Angels we extended our normal day and also added Saturday school.

Teachers came in on alternate Saturdays to teach and we also made use of online learning programmes for Maths and English so each Saturday consisted of a full morning of school.

Strict protocols are the key to our success

The key to our success has been the strict implementation of protocols for health monitoring, mask wearing, social distancing and sanitising. Every child has their temperature taken and their hands sanitised several times during the day. They each have their own desk which is spread far from other learners in the class. In addition, we have completely isolated each class of children from the other classes. The grade R – grade 4 and grade 5 boys were going home daily so it was essential that they had no interaction whatsoever with the hostel children.

Managing the protocols in the classroom environment is relatively easy. The challenge came with the movement of people such as during break times and in bathrooms and the kitchen. We explained to all of the children that to keep safe, they cannot share any facilities – each class has its own eating schedule, eats in their own classroom and has its own toilet. They don’t even share break times. In this way we have created a bubble around each class so if there is an incident, the impact will be limited to one class and one teacher.

The personal touch

The lack of physical contact has been the hardest for the children and staff alike. We are a loving, hands-on staff and it has been extremely difficult not to offer physical comfort to the children, many of whom just need a hug to know someone cares and to make things better. They had no human touch since they left home on 1st June until the end of term on 6 August.

Moving Forward

It has been hard for the children to be away from home permanently for two months. Now that we’ve caught up with the curriculum, parents are more aware of how to keep themselves and their children safe and we are hopefully past the peak of infections, there is less of a necessity to keep them at school. 

We are not going to lose the momentum we’ve gained: we have invited the Grade 5 boys to join us at the hostel from the beginning of this term on 18 August. We will continue with the extended school day from 7- 2:30pm and Saturday school but have reduced it to every two weeks so that every second weekend the children will get a full weekend at home with their families. 

100% Commitment to the Goal

Our Principal, Sharon has been permanently either at school or in quarantine since the 1st of June. She has worked tirelessly and selflessly to make this as painless a process as possible for the children: some children suffered from homesickness, she would allow them to call home from her cell phone; if the girls needed toiletries, she would go to the shop to buy them; if morale was falling, she would organise a movie night, a braai or buy snacks. There is NOTHING she will not do to help these learners achieve their full potential.

When asked why, she says,
“If you want each child to reach their full potential through all the hardships which were significant before Covid-19 and have now been exacerbated exponentially - you need to be 100% dedicated to their welfare. These children need more support and more protection to give them an equal chance."

Sharon is not alone in her commitment. All of the teachers who are able have been taking shifts in the hostel and teaching Saturday school on top of their regular schoolwork and home lives. Sharon says, “The teachers are amazing. The levels that they will go to for these children are incredible. I am very satisfied and proud of what we have achieved, and it is down to the commitment of our staff.”

The children have also played their part – though the longer days and Saturday school were initially tiring, within two weeks, they had agjusted and were managing the longer hours.
“I never cease to amazed by what our children can achieve
– they really are incredible young people”

Once an Angel, always an Angel. 

While African Angels is a Primary School, we do continue to support our children after they are placed in High Schools and beyond. During the pandemic a few of them have needed a little more support and we have been happy to help.

Three past Angels have moved into the hostel.
  • One of the girls currently doing her IGCSE’s online came into the hostel because she didn’t have a safe and supportive environment in which to study. 
  • Two boys whose high school hostel didn’t open are being accommodated at African Angels. They were also provided with bicycles and warm clothing so they can get to their classes. They have their own routine and living space, and use the computer room as their study area, effectively creating their own individual bubble separate from the rest of the hostel dwellers.
Our first Angel to go to University is studying Law at the University of the Western Cape, and since lockdown she, and other high school learners have been using the Chintsa East Community Learning centre to participate in classes online.

The Learning Centre is a community located computer laboratory, donated by Express Petroleum, and is managed by African Angels.  It provides unlimited wifi to all those in range, and has proven invaluable for those who wish to continue their learning during lockdown, but did not have a device, or could not afford data.

Community Welfare

African Angels is a school for the community and takes its role in the welfare of its learners and their families very seriously. The community is suffering as never before – the demise of the tourism industry in Chintsa has decimated the local job market and left many families without a single income earner. While the school children were being fed some of their meals at school the rest of their families were going hungry. 

Chairperson of African Angels, Lou Billett took it upon herself to solicit food donations and package food parcels for each one of the 105 African Angels families. She was so successful that she has been able to donate over 700 food parcels during the past 5 months to the whole community, not just the African Angels families. 
The project was facilitated by a large group of people including Samantha, Catherine and the health helpers who have collected and collated household information to assist with distributing food parcels, and who have physically managed food parcel distribution.
Thanks go to some of our long term donors who have given additional funds for food parcels and family support, to Food Forward SA, to NVest who funded data, face masks for each child and two full rounds of food parcels, to The Lunch Box Fund who gave fifty five food parcels, to Rise Against Hunger for ten boxes of their special rice and vitamins and to the businesses in Chintsa who, despite being so impacted by the tourism shutdown, provided their staff with food parcels and support and continue to do so today.

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PO Box 424
East London, Eastern Cape 5259
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African Angels Independent School · PO Box 424 · East London, Eastern Cape 5259 · South Africa

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