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The Cape of Good Hope Rotary Club had built a pre-school building in Masiphumelele and Herbie then took it upon himself to turn it into a little school. With an initial grant of R25 000 of his own money, general operational purposes plus a copier, school books, paper and many other things necessary for the building to function effectively as a pre-school.
Being the deep thinker he is, Herbie realised that this was not enough.
Herbie wanted to help Principle Zanele Bontshi, and administrator Linda Lamb, by facilitating assistance in three key areas: literacy, numeracy and life-skills. If the children could become acquainted with these three fundamentals, Herbie felt it would give the children a sound footing with which to move to grade 1.
The first step would be Literacy.
Most of the children spoke Xhosa or Afrikaans and would struggle when going into grade one if they could not understand English. Somehow the children had to become more fluent in English. So Herbie appealed for volunteers through Full Circle and other local media and in short time had all the volunteers they needed, who came to the school daily and interacted with the children, read them stories and augmented the work done by the teachers. This wasn't enough to satisfy Herbie so he decided to provide a monthly salary for a qualified English teacher.
The next step would be Numeracy.
Again Herbie chose to provide a salary for a maths teacher to come and visit the school twice a week. Herbie then met Grenville Le Grange who is a teacher of the very highest standard. Grenville is a passionate, caring and very enlightening man who is one of those rare truly inspirational academics who simplifies maths to an understandable level that no longer intimidates children. With his decades of experience, Grenville has also helped to formulate a programme for Masakhane that they will be able to replicate in other pre-schools in the area.
To teach the children life-skills, Herbie appealed for school-leavers to spend a gap year at Masakhane, where they would be paid a stipend to interact with the children and pass on their own life-skills. They would also assist wherever possible and learn firsthand what it is like to teach young children and hopefully go on to become qualified teachers.
Finally Herbie, appealed for musical instruments to add the element of fun and creativity that had perhaps been lacking. While the appeal for musical instruments did not net any instruments, something else very special happened: Two teachers from Fish Hoek Middle School who read the article in Full Circle came forward and offered to play and teach piano and guitar. They now do so on a regular basis. Another gentleman, who is a ballroom dancer came forward and now gives glasses in dance and movement.
The entire programme, just two-and-a-half years old, has been a resounding success. The children from Masakhane have become fully multilingual and have moved into grade 1 with great results.
Most of the Masakhane children are in the top percentile at their new schools. The children are graded one to four in their various subject, one being below expectations, and four being above expectations. Of the first group of Masakhane kids that went into grade 1, many have been rated fours for numeracy. One has been rate four for language and most of the others are rates three.
Herbie finds this extremely pleasing. The results are quantifiable and very positive. He knows his programme has made a difference in the lives of these young children.
In fact, the programme may have worked better than expected. There has been feedback from some of the schools that the children may be a bit too advanced and get easily bored in grade 1. As with all bored children, they look for something to do and some have proved a bit disruptive in class.
Herbie's dream of educating young people never stopped there and he always envisioned taking it further. He wanted to assist the local communities and school boards improve facilities at all schools in the communities but encountered bureaucratic and logistical barriers.
Never one to give up easily, Herbie re-thought his dream and realised that if he couldn't improve the lot of all children shouldn't mean he couldn't improve the lot of any children.
Thus the Empowerment Through Education concept refined to select the five top achievers each year from Masakhane (and Green Curtains) and set up a fund that would pay for their education from Grade 1 right through University.
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