December 2023 Overview
Adopt a South African Preschool funds Educational Toy Library-Training Centers, so that vulnerable children gain the foundation for school success. Preschoolers learn through play, and essential life skills form in safe, caring, and stimulating environments. But countless children of color in impoverished communities cannot access educational toys and resources.
Instead, they spend their critical early years languishing in overcrowded daycares. Daycare owners are untrained entrepreneurs who offer low-cost childcare to feed their own families. They become teachers with business skills as they borrow resources from ASAP’s hubs, located within walking distance. They enjoy weekly curriculum training sessions and mentoring visits from the preschool coaches of ASAP’s South African NGO partner, PEN.
Founded in February 2020, ASAP donors have established 7 toy library hubs in 2 provinces. Nearly all are at full capacity serving 9,000 children, 850 women, and 192 preschools. In 2024 we will keep expanding. U. Pretoria faculty will begin researching the efficacy of our model.
Why Our Mission Matters:
First grade predicts life success. 90% of brain development happens (or not) by age 5.
One of every four South African 5-year-olds suffers from stunting due to malnutrition.
80% of South African 4 th graders do not understand what they read; 40% cannot read at all.
Unemployment is over 60% for young adults in the 16-35 age range.
ASAP/PEN’s simple model uplifts children, women, and communities.
Donors help South Africans address apartheid’s legacy of generational poverty.
What ASAP Dollars Will Do!
$15 Funds one or two educational toys, games, puzzles, books, or sports items.
$75 Funds one Play and Learn (PAL) Kit of 5 curriculum-aligned toys.
$150 Funds items for purchase at PEN's incentive store. ***
$300 Funds one Kit of 30 musical instruments.
$4,500 Funds seed money for a new coach's salary for one year.
$8,500 Funds the startup of a new Toy Library Training Center including shelves, security doors, barred windows, multiple tables, chairs, and sets of educational toys, books, games, puppets, puzzles, and resources for borrowing by 10 informal daycares as they become preschools.
$6,000 Funds the expansion of Educational Toy Libraries to support 10 more daycares as they become preschools. Full capacity is 30 preschools and 3 coaches.
*** Preschool owners gain points, like monopoly money, for attending weekly curriculum trainings and monthly workshops, and for reaching their goals. Points buy dolls, large pots, mops, carpet pieces, fire extinguishers, balance beams, books, medical kits etc. These essentials can’t be borrowed and would otherwise be too difficult or costly to purchase.
ASAP and PEN do not give handouts.
Your dollars deepen personal initiative, not dependency.