Friends of AmasangoFriends of Amasango is the UK charity that supports the work of the Amasango Career School in Makhanda (Grahamstown), South Africa. This special needs school enables severely marginalised children and young people to obtain a primary education and build self-esteem. Grants from the Friends mainly provide:
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Amasango in the news
SABC 18 October
Watch the report on why Amasango has shipping containers for classrooms supplied by the Eastern Cape Department of Education after a 2010 court ruling that it must build a proper school. Part of the court order was to supply temporary structures. A new school has yet to be built. Watch the interview with Cameron McConnachie, regional director of the Legal Resources Centre at Makhanda. |
Children from the very poorest backgrounds and from the street are referred to the school by social workers. They enter the school at the grade appropriate to their level of education, not necessarily the one appropriate for their age, which can be anything from 5 to 18.
Thanks to the specialised care and teaching provided at the school about half the learners are able to continue their education at high school. Others learn a vocational skill that they will be able to use to find work. The Department of Education refers some learners who are not coping with the normal curriculum in mainstream schools to Amasango in order to follow the skills curriculum. |
Friends and volunteersThe UK charity Friends of Amasango is run by nine trustees. It is small but financially efficient, with expenses amounting to less than 3 per cent of income. All money sent to South Africa is budgeted and controlled.
Street children need a lot of individual attention, so volunteers are welcome at the school. They travel to Grahamstown at their own expense, fund their living expenses and work on their own initiative once there. While the charity offers advice and ensures that a DBS check has been carried out, it doesn’t provide a formal volunteer programme. If there was no school like this in Grahamstown, some of these children would be dead by now from sniffing glue and petrol and robbing people, but this school has helped to remove children from the street and to give them a basic education. Linda Ngamlana, Principal |