We are growing

This is Siyakhula Education Foundation, SAEP's partner in running the ADT Teach program in Johannesburg. After the success of last year's pilot in Cape Town, ADT Johannesburg contracted with SAEP to launch another ADT Teach program in their area, but without an existing presence up there we needed to partner up. Siyakhula is a much smaller nonprofit than SAEP at the moment, but the Director, Andrew, is a pretty amazing social entrepreneur. They run an adult computer education program as well as an after-school tutoring program for high school learners (remember they?re called learners here) and generally emphasize social business over purely charitable activities.

This awesome building is situated right on the edge of the Ivory and Ebony Park townships, which are north of Joburg. I've spent extended time here twice now and have yet to see the famous Soweto (over two hours from the northern townships (JHB has an incredible degree of sprawl) but everyone tells me it's quite a sight. This area is quiet, green, friendly, and the people speak beautiful English. One of our ADT Teach schools runs all 13 grade levels, and the kindergarteners speak as well as many of our Cape Town learners (who are in high school). The theory is that there are so many cultures crammed together in this area that English becomes the default for everyone.

Enough journalism. I really, really love it up here. Siyakhula's outfit continues to be an inspiration in terms of future developments at SAEP, and I believe this ADT Teach program will be at least as successful as the Cape Town one. I still have the first draft of the proposal Norton and I wrote for the layout of the pilot project two years ago, and getting to launch another one and fly up here regularly to manage it is great payback for putting my heart into it. We now have 450 kids in ADT Teach programs in the two cities, and that number will only continue to grow.

By the way, siyakhula means "we are growing" in Zulu. Branding touché, Andrew.