When a child experiences play poverty, they will struggle to learn, to read and to write.
Your monthly donation can help us create play partnerships for community education.
A collaborative partnership of like-minded, successful, community development organisations working in early childhood development against play poverty.
Encompassing world renowned LEGO play programmes and a South African contextualised early literacy programme, Nami Futhi is a facilitation and support organization working to narrow the performance gap between the richest and poorest households in South African education to bring about positive, measurable change.
Through the efforts of Nami Futhi, two quality early learning centres, Siyakhula and Sikhulile have been planted to meet the needs of 117 of our most vulnerable children.
Many of the children are raised in extremely impoverished informal settlements without basic services such as electricity or water, and no access to safe play spaces
Lack Gross Motor Skills
Lack literacy and language skills
Lack Fine Motor Skills
Fall behind in numeracy and mathematics skills
Fall behind in cognitive skills
Have no access to safe play areas
Source * https://www.thrivebyfive.co.za
Play poverty, particularly in the early years, is the single biggest
stumbling block to a child’s ability to progress through and complete school.
Children learn more between birth and 5 years of age than they do at
any other time in their lives, and they do this all through play.
Children learn about the world through play, they learn to
communicate, to socialise, to question, to build complex sequences when playing.
Every donation is used in the purpose of supporting our children out of play povery.
Local Currency ZAR 350
Monthly donation of approximately R350 per month to help feed, nourish and educate a child for a year.
Local Currency Amount
Choose your own amount to donate at a frequency that works for you. Each Euro has a 20 fold effect in South Africa.
Local Currency ZAR 10'000
Start, build and grow an ECD center for up to 15 children. This amount allows us to fundamentally shift lives.
In April 2022, a group of passionate educators and creators gathered in Nottingham Road, to plan an Early Childhood Development programme to be put forward to apply for funding through The LEGO Foundation.
The LEGO Build a World of Play Challenge called upon organisations around the world to showcase bold, sustainable ideas that could serve to build a world where every child under six has the chance to learn through play.
This commitment to Early Childhood Development (ECD) throughout the world drew on LEGO’s 90 years of insight into how powerful play is in supporting and meaningfully enhancing children's learning, wellbeing, and holistic development.
Nami Futhi’s plans involve addressing all factors that impact on the holistic development of the child. “We cannot overlook the child’s environment and have to take the broader community into account” says Nosiphiwe Sibisi (coordinator for home-based learning programs).
Nutrition goes hand-in-hand with quality educational provision. (It’s short sighted to provide excellent learning opportunities whilst the child has an empty stomach and is justifiably distracted.)
“We also cannot continue to exclude children with special needs” continues Rose Upfold (Social Enterprise coordinator) “We need to address ways to reduce poverty, to improve the health of the broader community by providing training opportunities and facilitating social enterprise.”
To bring about real, sustainable change, Nami Futhi is consistently engaging with local municipality representatives to prioritise early learning initiatives and where necessary drive government policy change and direct funding for this purpose.
ECD
Programme
Co-ordinator
Operations Head and LEGO Play Box trainer
ECD Training Head
Coordinator for Home-based Learning Programs
Social
Enterprise
Coordinator
Through community partnerships with Midlands Community College (ECD training) and LOVE Notties (our environmental, education, and humanitarian champion partner who assist with fundraising and feeding our children) Nami Futhi is bringing hope to families in the Nottingham Road community by providing quality early learning education to our most vulnerable children, children who ordinarily would not have access to pre-school education.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a community to raise up hundreds.
We are lucky and grateful for support from of our partners, Love Notties and Midlands Community College
We thank our annual and monthly donors who sponsor school fees for our children.
We are lucky and grateful for support from the below local businesses:
