This month we celebrated 10 years of fruitful partnership with Project Bright. This ECD Centre, owned by Principal Bright Zondi is situated in Molweni and was the third school to join our iThemba Educare Programme.
Project Bright was founded in 2012, with only two children in Bright’s home. At the time, there were no pre-schools in the area, and Bright saw the need for children to have reliable childcare while their parents worked. Bright approached Focus on iThemba in 2013, requesting assistance with various needs the School had such as food and toys. She was delighted a year later, when the opportunity to enter into partnership with Focus on iThemba, through our Educare Programme, arose. At this time, the School’s facilities were not equipped to provide children with a conducive learning environment. Besides the structure being unstable, it was poorly lit and ventilated with no outdoor play apparatus for the children to develop their gross-motor skills.
A meeting with Focus on iThemba and Container World in 2016 resulted in Container World offering recycled shipping containers as a solution to building the School a new learning space and the momentum grew from there. A number of partners came on board to facilitate the transformation of Project Bright into a brightly coloured centre of care and learning for young children in Molweni, complete with 3 classrooms, a kitchen, an office and storage unit, a sick bay, toilets and wash basins, a playground, jungle gym and bike track, a JOJO tank and a vegetable garden.
Project Bright was our first container-conversion transformation project and it’s incredible success has lead to the continuation of our efforts in structurally upgrading schools that demonstrate the need and right conditions.
It has been a joy to work with such a dynamic, driven and passionate lady as Bright and we have learned so much from her. Bright\’s tenacity, leadership and her huge heart for her community have taken this school from strength to strength. Her forward thinking and energy means that there are always new plans in store for the School. Bright recently opened a Grade R to cater to the growing enrolment and interest from parents in her community.
We have been blessed to witness the transformative power of collaboration through our partnership with Project Bright and our like-minded donors. We are proud of what we have together accomplished here and we so look forward to seeing what the next years of partnership hold.
