One of the best pre-primary schools in the Western Cape is here in Stanford in the informal settlement ‘Die Kop’. The young children live 5 kilometers away from the regular governmental funded pre-primary school and that is not the 7 kilometer needed to have access to the official school bus system. Add to that the busy road the children have to cross, etc., etc. Except for a grant of 11 Rand per child per school day of the department of Social Development (for food, salaries staff and other running expenses) the funding is purely sourced in the private sphere; in- and outside South Africa and as far as the Rotary Club in Knoxville Tennessee in the USA.

Without this initiative of the NGO Food 4 Thought the parents would have kept their young children at home. Now the children have the opportunity to grow into further education. Food 4 Thought was founded in 2004 and initiated by ‘Black” and ‘White’ villagers including a significant input of mothers of the settlement.

An old municipal building was privately upgraded (new windows, proper sanitation, paint, etc. etc.) by the initiative takers and since than the school and the support from third parties have been growing. And still it needs quite an input of the participants to organise things like daily meals and drinks for the children, maintenance, dealing with ‘officials’ and so on. But the initiative in one that bears fruit and deserves wider acknowledgement within the Western Cape.

The name of the school is Funimfundo and that is Xhosa for Seeking Knowledge.