Siyakwazi’s First Holiday Club for 2018

We are so excited about the success of our recent Holiday Club which took place from 25 – 29 June 2018. Over the years we have hosted our Holiday Club to support children’s learning outside of the classroom, promote literacy and numeracy skills, offer a safe space for children to learn, and of course make sure that children have FUN! It also gives us an opportunity to meet new children as well as build relationships with parents and caregivers and explain more about what we do.

This year we are happy to report that our attendance grew exponentially, that is, we had an average increase of almost 200% per day; our busiest day we had just over 190 children. Kids were aged from 3 to 9 years old and we divided children into their age groups for the various activities.

holiday club registration

Children queue to register fo Holiday Club

The theme for this holiday club was safety and trust, so activities and games were linked to the theme and encouraged children to think about road safety, safety in the home as well as who to go to when they are feeling unsafe or mistreated.

The programme involved singing, storytelling, various activity stations that focused on fine motor skills, including creative play (e.g. play dough, lego and making toys from waste), active play outside promoting gross motor skills, and reading at the beginning and at the end of the day. All the children received a book to take home on the last day, sponsored by Biblionef South Africa.

Healthy snacks were provided as well. We put emphasis on nutrition as part of capacity building parents with information about the role nutrition plays in a child’s early development.

Inclusion is so important in everything we do, some of the children from our NCB programme joined us for a few of the days. A big Thank You to the following sponsors for supporting our Holiday Club:

  • Sithanda UkuFunda – loaned books through their mobile library for reading and storytelling time
  • Biblionefsa – sponsored books for children to take home
  • Harbourview Spar- healthy snacks
  • Food for Africa – porridge
  • Daily GroundHibiscus Mall – juice
  • Other donations from community members and local shops in Margate
  • Heron Bridge College – who supported some of the activities with the children whilst they were giving our resource centre a facelift!
  • Masakhane Centre for providing a venue
holiday club siyasizas working

Siyasizas, Nontuthuko and Thembile preparing the activity stations

Lastly, the success of holiday club needs to largely be attributed to the amazing team of Siyasizas whose planning and preparation ensured the success and smooth running of the programmes. There was definitely a lot of Izinga (quality) in this year’s activities!

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