Kaalfontein Primary School, founded in 1993, has been a recipient of Jasco’s Corporate Social Investment initiative for a number of years.
Since its inception the school has grown considerably, educating up to 1 800 primary school children. It has, however, been unable to grow its structural size due to financial constraints.
Seeing the need for growth, Jasco recently completed construction of a second classroom for the school, one of three, which are to be built to accommodate Grade R children. Construction of the third classroom begins soon as part of the process of upgrading the computer lab.
The school, a Section 21 institution, is now accommodating over 2 100 children and giving them a fresh start at becoming tomorrow leaders.
Many of the children who attend the school are from child-headed households and receive little in the way of daily sustenance – the school feeding scheme providing the bulk of what they eat, in addition to education.
To supplement the feeding scheme, Jasco has invested in boosting the school’s vegetable garden, with several staff members becoming actively involved in painting classrooms, such as at the last Nelson Mandela Day, reviving the garden and planting more vegetables. The vegetable garden also provides employment for 10 otherwise unemployed mothers of some of the school’s children, as well as additional income from the sale of any surplus vegetables.
Mrs S.A. Finalist Nicole Capper spreading awareness in schools on Mandela Day
To date, contributions of security cameras for the protection of school children and assets, furniture for classrooms and teacher facilities and over 2 300 blankets to provide winter warmth to the children, in the region of R500 000.
The Kaalfontein Primary School is flourishing and enjoys an impressive 100 per cent pass rate. Children graduating from the school, feed into the nearby Ponelopele Oracle Secondary School, which is another ‘no fee’ school derived from a public/private partnership between Oracle Corporation SA and the Gauteng Department of Education. It has been identified as one of the schools to go ‘paperless’ as part of the Department of Education’s digital school initiative.
Make every day a Mandela Day!
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