Early Education
Our vested interest in the early development of children is an essential part of our goal to inspire healthy, engaged, and civic-minded adults.
Education
Our Thandukwazi and Siyazazi programmes teach our Creative Learning Curriculum which is designed to complement the traditional school syllabus with the teaching of essential life skills, which we like to call Game Changing Skills.
Organic Farming
We focus on reducing food insecurity, building self-reliance among cash-dependent communities, & encouraging local enterprise growth.
Community Centre
Open 365 days a year, the NIVEA Thanda Centre is a safe place where children are free to be themselves and where they can learn, play and explore.
We exist to support families to build life-skills
and realise their potential
Help us to empower people to create positive change, locally and globally! We guarantee all donations made to Thanda directly support our programmes to ensure every beneficiary receives the highest amount of support.
On Our Blog
Organic Farming Initiative
Origin
Thanda’s Organic Farming Initiative grew from the realisation that children in our Education and Early Learning Programmes needed a more holistic approach to their nutritional needs as this directly impacts their learning and development.
Receiving a substantial nutrient-dense meal at Thanda helped ensure that they received the macro and micronutrients…
Inclusion with Sphumelele
Sphumelele started at Thanda in 2019 as an Early Learning intern. She showed incredible dedication and promise and was then hired as and ECD Facilitator. In 2021, she was promoted to the coordinator role for the Inclusion Programme.
Sphumelele…
Fun Foundations with Dudu
Fun is the cornerstone of learning… especially when it comes to children. Today we continue our dive into Early Learning as we share more about our Fun Foundations Playgroups, with a zoom-in on Dudu, the programme manager!
This is the story of how our Fun Foundations playgroups began. The children of…
ECD with Nokuthula
We are currently zooming in on our three core Thanda initiatives, what they mean and how they have changed over the few years.
We have already shared some of our Education Initiative programmes, and this week we are moving on to our Early Learning Initiative.
The programmes that form part of…
Siyazazi Outdoor Programme
Thanda has changed a lot since opening our doors in 2008. We’ve expanded into a whole range of programmes, serving hundreds of people in the Mtwalume area!
Our Education Programme is where it began! Over the next few weeks we are looking at what some of our programmes look like…
Thandukwazi Outdoor Programme
Thanda opened its doors in 2008.
We saw the need for quality teaching and an opportunity of space for doing so in the empty classrooms of local schools after the last bell had rung each day. We began with After-school Education, and our support has grown and evolved since then… especially…
Impact Report 2020/2021 is here!
Our 2020/2021 Impact Report is here!
Q: What does the word ‘Impact’ mean? A: To have a strong effect on something.
Our Impact Report shows exactly that! The EFFECT that Thanda and the work we do in the community of Mtwalume in rural KwaZulu…
Growing Your Own Organic Food
Organic farming uses a range of techniques that support ecosystems, limit pollution and boost nutrition quality. Techniques like crop rotation, natural composting and organic pest control are said to result in up to four times more nutrition than traditional methods. It also increases the sustainability of farms as the…
Interconnectedness
At Thanda we’ve always taken a holistic approach.
In the early days, when we saw children’s attention spans waning during our after-school sessions we introduced a feeding scheme. Understanding the importance of eating nutritious food at every meal of the day, rather than only at Thanda, we then introduced an…
Thanda’s New Literacy Programme
Eight out of 10 children in South African can’t read at the same level as their international peers, not in English, not in their home language, not in any language! According to The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), an international comparative reading assessment: 87% of isiZulu grade…
Skateboarding in Rural South Africa
Thanda’s Community Centre is home to our skatepark. It is the only space like it for hundreds of kilometres. Most of the local Mtwalume community is a maze of dusty dirt roads that cannot accommodate skateboarding – it truly is a…
The Benefits of Multilingual Education
South Africa has 11 official languages and isiZulu is the language that this predominantly spoken in the Mtwalume area, where Thanda is based.
The main language of instruction at Thanda is isiZulu. Research shows that children whose early education is in their mother tongue tend to do better, educationally, in…
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