May-June Overview
Our Mission:
Adopt a South African Preschool (ASAP) funds Educational Toy Library Training Hubs, so that vulnerable children gain the foundation for school success. Essential life skills form in safe, caring, and stimulating settings where children learn through play. But countless South African children spend their critical, early years in overcrowded, under-resourced daycares. Some have never held a toy.
Daycare owners in struggling communities throughout South Africa are untrained entrepreneurs who offer low-cost childcare to feed their own families. ASAP and our nonprofit partner PEN (Participate, Envision, Navigate) establish Toy Library Training Centers within walking distance of 30+ informal daycares. Daycare owners who register to borrow toys gain skills in teaching and business. Preschool coaches from PEN provide weekly curriculum training and mentoring visits. They show how each toy, puppet, game, book, musical instrument, and activity stimulates multiple aspects of development.
Founded in February 2020, ASAP donors have established 7 Toy Library-Training hubs. Nearly all are at full capacity serving 8,758 children, 991 women, and 181 preschools. We are moving into two new provinces. The University of Pretoria early childhood faculty are 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.
25% of South African 5-year-olds suffer from the physical and cognitive stunting of malnutrition.
80% of South African 4 th graders do not understand what they read; 40% cannot read at all.
Unemployment is about 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.
$4,000 Funds seed money for a preschool early childhood development coach for one year.
$6,000 Funds startup costs for a new Toy Library Training Hub 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.
$3,000 Funds existing Educational Toy Libraries to resource 10 additional preschools. Full capacity/hub is 30 preschools and 3 coaches.
*** Preschool owners gain points, like monopoly money, for attending weekly and monthly training sessions and for reaching their goals. Points are used to buy dolls, soup pots, buckets, mops, carpet pieces, fire extinguishers, balance beams, books, and other essential supplies too difficult or costly for preschool owners to purchase otherwise.