THE CENTRE FOR CREATIVE EDUCATION, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
Iziko laBantu be Afrika/for the peoples of Africa

Braking the cycle of poverty

Many young children in South Africa live in distressing conditions of poverty, overcrowding and squalor, with all its attendant ills.   We run training programmes for women who care for these young children from birth to school-going age (known as “Educare” in South Africa), in the belief that the young child’s life journey depends on the quality of care offered by these women.  
Waldorf Early Childhood Teacher Training is aimed at guiding students to nurture each child and lead every one of them towards one day finding its own place in the world as a free, creative human being.    Our belief is that the cycle of poverty can be broken if early childhood education truly meets the needs of children, so that in time they can lift themselves out of the grinding poverty they were born into.
The Centre’s early childhood training programmes are fully accredited by Government and the Centre is registered with the Department of Education. The Waldorf/Steiner content has not been compromised.

Caring for babies and toddlers

Up to now the programmes have always concentrated on the kindergarten child.   We have been continuously distressed by the plight of the babies and toddlers in the Educare centres, but have not had the resources to work in this area.   Babies and toddlers are given the smallest, poorest rooms and untrained, and often uncaring, carers.   Eldbjorg Gjessing Paulsen from Norway has been giving short Babycare courses in each of her annual visits.   This will continue, but in addition, she will be working intensively with two centres, and through the generosity of some Norwegian kindergartens and parents, she will be able to equip them.   The wish is to create two excellent demonstration Babycare facilities, to practically underpin the training she gives.   Babies need proper care from birth, otherwise the benefits of kindergarten education are lessened.   The Centre’s basic training programme now includes the care of babies and toddlers as a support for Eldbjorg’s work.

A rainbow nation

Most of our students are Black women from the ‘township’ (slum) areas which surround Cape Town, but we have students from the Coloured, Muslim and White communities too – we are really representative of ‘the Rainbow Nation’! (Archbishop Desmond Tutu)
Each year we have an average of 100 students at various levels of study.   This means that each year there are three to four thousand children who are being touched in some way by Waldorf/Steiner education.

For information contact:

Ann Sharfman, Cape Town  annsharfman@telkomsa.net
Robyn Judge-Davis, Cape Town robyn@cfce.org.za