14 September 2015 we are pleased to announce our first land acquisition in the Crossroads Township of Cape Town, South Africa. The acquisition underpins the long term strategy of the charity to offer the women running the Early Child Development nurseries permanent solutions and security of tenure to secure the first 6 years of their pupils education.
Stefan Allesch-Taylor CBE, The Afri-CAN Charity Chairman said “Ensuring long term tenure for ECD’s in the townships is a challenge. We have made our first acquisition and are reviewing more. By purchasing the land outright we offer the teachers that run the ECD long term certainty of tenure and we also ensure the impact of our own investment for generations to come. The land will remain in the ownership of the Afri-CAN Charity and we will offer the teachers a long term, zero cost, lease for as long as the land is used for an ECD.”
This purchase of land will be used to upgrade the Siyamthanda Early Child Development (ECD) Nursery and change the lives of its current 56 pupils. The upgrade will also allow the Siyamthanda ECD to enrol a further 60 pupils in the nursery, more than doubling the impact the ECD is currently making in the community. We will be giving those 116 pupils free school breakfasts each day, supply new track suit uniforms, provide education tools for the teachers, provide teacher training and entrepreneurial mentoring for the women that own the ECD.