Doesn’t it just make you feel proud when Port Elizabeth residents, institutions or even just the city are mentioned in ‘popular’ media?
Jenna Arnold from the Huffington Post quoted the sterling work being done by the Ubuntu Education Fund in Kwazakhele, Port Elizabeth in the following article: Don’t Let ‘Three Cups of Tea’ Controversy Discourage Giving.
The relevant section of the article is:
One skeptic was Jacob Lief, who repeatedly questioned the Central Asia Institute’s model during conferences on best practices for international education development. In 1999, Lief co-founded the Ubuntu Education Fund, which focuses on planting a seed and ensuring it grows.
In Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Lief applies a holistic approach to education. Just building schools, he says, is like “Putting a Band-Aid on a giant axe wound.” You must address the dynamics that can drain a child’s ability to learn, such as untrained teachers, poor health and/or abusive homes. For children to be successful, Lief argues, “They need a pathway, that doesn’t just address a chalkboard and a desk, but one that tackles nutrition, mental health and a safe home.”
Lief has therefore created an intensive model to ensure that children can move beyond mere survival mode and thrive, just as children living in the richest parts of the world. His mantra to New York City donors is that the children in Port Elizabeth deserve just as much investment as children living in New York City. He challenges potential donors to imagine if all we did for a child’s education in the U.S. was to build a school and expect everything else to fall into place. Without nurturing, just dropping a seed does not work. His concept is to take a child from infancy to a university education through paying the salaries of over 80 dedicated, local professionals to directly manage community development.
This model, however, requires pouring an enormous amount of money and resources into a seven-kilometer radius. In a world where millions and millions of kilometers are void of the basic human right of education, is this enough? Would it be better to quickly provide the space and means for children’s education and then move on to the next deserving area?
Alan Straton
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