Christmas is a time of giving: of faith, hope and love. We celebrate by buying gifts for family and friends, sharing a special meal and enjoying the holidays.

This year we're asking you to add an extra gift (or more!) to your list.

On the 25th November, Christmas will come to Crossroads and Philippi early, as we invite all our children to a fun-filled party. 

• Children from our clinic who face the daily challenge of managing a chronic disease.
• Children from our family strengthening team, some of whom have suffered abuse, others who are facing grief and loss of parents and loved ones and others who are caring for younger siblings.
• Children from our after school education programme, who have worked hard to improve their academics through investing time every afternoon after school.
  
  

We expect approximately 800 children to attend our event. And we need your help to make it a day to remember!

​We want to celebrate these children and we need your help! Please make a donation today. Choose one of the gifts or give your own amount in any currency.

Mr Halbert Mlindazwe was one of the principals shortlisted for the After School Leadership Excellence Award by the Western Cape Government. The award recognises principals who are leading the way in providing creative and dynamic after school programmes at their schools.

Mr Mlindazwe is the principal of Bongolethu Primary School where we implement the MOD YearBeyond Programme for Grade 1 to 4 learners to provide them with a safe space after school and focus on improving their educational outcomes in literacy and numeracy.

Congratulations Mr Mlindazwe and thank you for the support you give to us Beautiful Gate!

​https://www.westerncape.gov.za/news/winners-after-school-leadership-excellence-award-announced

​​We are excited to share our report with you on the #AfricaCodeWeek activities here at Beautiful Gate South Africa. We are very grateful to have been one of 60 organisations from 10 countries in Africa that received a Google Microgrant to make this week happen! Our sincere thanks to Google and the Cape Town Science Centre for administering the grant.

Our Africa Code Week programme was held from 3-6 October during the school holidays. This allowed children from the local community to access the centre easily and gave us enough time to allow learners to enjoy the experience while keeping them busy during the holiday.

We used the following modules:
Cs-first (Theme Club: Storytelling)
Scratch v456.0.4 (offline)
Hour of Code (Code.org)
Experimentation with Lego Robotics

We aimed to give children who are not currently part of our coding club the opportunity to experience coding and computers and inspire a love for technology.
We had 214 children between the ages of 8-16 years old attend sessions during the week. 53 of these were girls.

My name is Lungisa Sobhuwa from Crossroads.
I am 25 years old, and matriculated in 2008.
I took a gap year in 2009 and participated in a youth programme and from there I  went on to work so that I could gain experience.

In 2013 I came to Beautiful Gate's Youth Resource Centre to look for opportunities. I participated in a 6 weeks Self Development and Computer Literacy held at Beautiful Gate and took another short programme which works closely with Beautiful Gate got a job to work in retail.

Now in 2016 I am a volunteer Tutor for a programme called Year Beyond. Year Beyond or YeBo is a partnership between the Western Cape Government and NGOs aimed at improving educational outcomes and encouraging a culture of volunteerism. I work at Bongolethu Primary School. This was all made possible by Beautiful Gate South Africa and I am grateful for the opportunities.

Visit their website to find out more information about the YearBeyond Programme.

On the weekend of the 10-11 of October we had a camp with our current Grade 10 learners who are part of the High School Education Support programme.

We are excited to have been selected as an implementing partner for Ikamva Youth and were able to start with this group in the third term of the year. The learners come from 4 different High Schools in the community, namely Phandulwazi, Phakama, Vuyiseka and Philippi High.

The learners are doing the Maths, Physical Science, Accounting and Economics. plus English and e-learning  and we have secured tutors from Teach Out as well as local tutors from CPUT, UWC  and UCT. 

In 2016 we will be expanding our programme to reach more high school learners.

​On 3-4 October 2015 we organised a 'farewell' session for our 25 Matric learners from New Eisleben High School. These learners have been part of our two year programme that included classroom interaction with tutors, site visits to Tertiary Institutions of Higher Education and retreats on quarterly basis. The learners were selected by their school because of the progress they were showing in Maths and Science and their potential to become the best students academically with additional support from tutors.

During the programme, we have covered various life skills topics from Personal Development to the “softer” skills needed in the World of Work. We have assisted them with Career Guidance and Planning, as well discussed the importance of being a good citizen.

The tutorial support was provided by Teach Out, a student organisation based at the University of Cape Town. We are grateful that this organisation will continue with their support next year as we expand our programme to reach more learners.

We wish these learners well in their final exams and will mentor and support them next year as part of our Post-Matric Support Programme and look forward to hearing of their successes

One of the ongoing and most pervasive challenges for South Africa today is the issue of inequality. There is no easier place to view this inequality than in the townships surrounding the City of Cape Town. With two boys in a government school in an established suburb, it pains me daily to see the inequality facing children of the same age in Crossroads and Philippi. While education is not the only area of inequality in our country, it is certainly one of the drivers which if not addressed will ensure that inequality in our country will never be erased. Even as some people applaud an improving secondary school pass rate sadly, only 44% of children get to grade 12 in South African schools. The number of pupils who started grade one in 2002 was 1,261,827 - however, the number of pupils who eventually wrote grade 12 exams in 2013 only 562,112. A staggering 56% of learners lost before even writing matric. Of those that did get to sit down to those exams, only 78.2% passed. Sadly, this means that more than 60% of South African children are left with no qualification at all beyond the Grade 9 level. 

How do begin to address this? Read more about how Beautiful Gate's After School programme is improving educational outcomes and beginning to see results.

Beautiful Gate’s Youth Resource Centre sees over 1000 high school learners and out of school youth each year. Most attend the Centre to use the computer and internet facilities to do homework, research study and career opportunities and apply to colleges and universities. Others come looking for employment opportunities and internships to help them get into the ever increasingly competitive job market. Last year we launched a pilot project with grade 11 learners to focus on supporting a group of achieving Science and Maths students from New Eisleben High School. By providing Career Guidance, Life Skills and Digital Training we hope to be able to mentor these young learners to discover their career path and assist them through successful application to College or University. Yet one essential intervention was lacking; tutoring support. 

In 2015, we finally found a partner to help us fill this all important gap – Teach Out. 

Teach Out is a project under Ubunye and associated with the University of Cape Town. TeachOut aims to harness the experience and expertise of UCT students to provide academic assistance to high school learners in Cape Town’s disadvantaged communities. They achieve their mission by running after-school and Saturday tutorials in various academic subjects. The aim of these tutorials is not to replace classroom teaching, but rather to offer their skills and resources to provide academic assistance from students to students. This helps learners to build confidence and to identify and correct gaps in their knowledge. 

With focus subjects being English, Functional English, Physical Science, Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy, Teach Out is the ideal partner to help learners accessing the Beautiful Gate Youth Empowerment Programme to succeed academically.

Our sincere thanks appreciation to Sarah Palser, Ruth Brain and Sethu Mbuli for helping us establish this vital partnership. We look forward to seeing the impact it will have on the success of our learners!