Active Schools Initiative

The “Active Schools Initiative” was founded in 2006 in order to promote physical activity and games as a means to further social and communication skills at primary school level. Those skills are important in order to prevent violent behaviour and strengthen the development of a positive self concept - as well as social responsibility and empathy.

In order to become socially responsible adults, children have to be sensitized for their own needs as well as for the needs of others. The social environment of low-income communities often doesn’t equip families to provide these basic aspects of socialisation. In addition to that, those children are confronted with the physical, psychological, social and emotional challenges of their harsh living conditions.

The Initiative has adapted the methods of the “Schools in Motion Concept”, which is based on an internationally successful anti-violence approach. But it also fosters personal resources which contribute to enable children to deal with experiences of conflict, abuse and violence. And it encourages them to interact with children of other cultures and languages, for example in isiXhosa and Afrikaans speaking communities. The concept is built on specific components. Most of them can be implemented without major additional resources:

1. Social skills sessions with classes: co-operation games, trust exercises, problem solution games etc.
2. Opportunities to build and play with self made playing equipment during the intervals: stilts from wood off-cuts, trampolines made from old tyres etc.
3. Peer Learning: Regularly trained “Child Coaches” facilitate games for their fellow learners in class and hand out, monitor and check on the interval equipment
4. Project Days: Climbing or circus programmes can be organized either by one school or as a joined programme for groups of different communities

The ASI is in the process to become an officially registered Non Profit Organisation which wants to provide introductions to the concept and trainings for interested schools and groups as well as access to the necessary equipment for the above listed activities.

The ASI Climbing Project

In January 2006, volunteers started a climbing project at one of the schools involved in our Initiative. Together with the learners and care takers of W.D. Hendricks we built a boulder cube on the school grounds in Factreton. 12 months later the children are still enjoying their “climbing wall” and some of them are showing great talent.

The experiences with the boulder cube have reminded us of the educational value of climbing, for example regarding the development of self esteem by reaching beyond one’s own expectations and experiencing great achievements just by believing in one’s own strength and possibilities. Securing others, furthers responsibility and empathy while active climbing teaches patience and encourages a second or third attempt instead of giving up and turning to the passive frustration that often characterizes every day living experiences in the impoverished communities (”I can’t do it anyway, so there is no need to even try”).

In the beginning of the year we also took some youth and adult coordinators for a rope climbing experience in order to find out whether they would be motivated and responsible enough to go through a training process in order to become “trainers”, who can take small groups of children/youth from the communities for climbing programmes. Their response was very positive, but due to structural and financial reasons we were at that time not yet able to start a sustainable process.

Another year has passed in the meantime and we feel the time has come to realize the climbing project we dreamt about for so long. We plan to train 6 to 8 of our youth/adult coordinators and to set up a “pilot climbing wall” with some top rope routes at one of our schools in February 2007.

We made contact with Walther Meyer from Venture Forth and the MDT in order to find out about safety guidelines, supervisor courses and certification procedures for our future adult coordinators and got a friendly and helpful response beyond our expectation. We also already received two ropes as well as some helmets and harnesses donated from companies in Germany.

We started to approach interested individuals for small donations and of course everybody involved from our side will do his or her best to also contribute from personal resources in order to make this project happen. Nevertheless we are aware that the planned project will require a lot of resources not only regarding equipment, but also in terms of skills, knowledge and access to training facilities. Therefore we would appreciate any possible support!

Andrea Zeus - ASI