ANNUAL REPORT 2014

Proverbs 19: 17 Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

and he will reward them for what they have done .

OVERVIEW

The past year have been challenging yet fruitful. As a

young organisation, our team is small, our capacity low

and our resources very limited. Just finding the time to

meet monthly was difficult. However, when I look back

now, reflecting on what we have accomplished so far I

can certainly say that I will not trade my team for any-

thing. A special thank you to the Board of Directors:

Wim Beukes; Maude Goliath; Burnese Jooste and

Monde Stemele. I appreciate their guidance and sup-

port.

As a team, we recognise the vital importance for all role

players to be actively and effectively involved in the edu-

cation process and our vision is to strengthen and ca-

pacitate these partnerships. We plan to fulfil this process

through three main functions. Firstly through various

evaluations done by a field expert in an effort to compile

a needs report. Areas of evaluation include the physical

environment of the facility, the educational resources

available, curriculum and assessment practices, institu-

tional management, parental involvement and health and

safety practices. Secondly by addressing these identified

needs through training, workshops, seminars and net-

working opportunities focussing on leadership, parent-

ing, tutoring and classroom management. And lastly by

establishing networking platforms where financial and

resource needs of facilities can be met through fundrais-

ing, resource provision and access to services.

We are up for the challenge and are looking forward to

2015.

Hestia Orchard

Executive Director

FAIR CARE PROJECT

The purpose of this project is improve, upgrade and

build capacity in Early Childhood Development (ECD)

partial care facilities in the Swartland municipal area.

There are roughly 74 crèches, not including all the farm

crèches. Many of these facilities are run with the mini-

mum resources and the children are not being adequate-

ly cared for. Furthermore many facilities are not imple-

menting a structured, standardised educational pro-

gramme and the young child moves to Grade R with de-

velopmental insufficiencies. Through this project, we

would like to support the local department of social de-

velopment to improve this situation for our young chil-

dren.

To start this process we have invited the principals of all

the crèches in the Swartland area to a stakeholders

meeting in July this year. Here we explained the process

and how they can contact us for an evaluation.

Our evaluation visits started November. Our website can

be visited for more details on their needs.

KHULISA ABANTWANA PROJECT

The main purpose of this fund is to support the learners who are at risk of academic failure in primary or high school and better support the educational environment where this learner finds him- or herself. The fund has two main applications. Firstly, it will pertain to Interven-tion programmes for high risk learners and secondly to

the capacity building of teachers.

Certain tendencies are often picked up by the WCED and even by teachers currently in the field. These trends indicate certain inadequacies and the purpose of this part of the fund is to roll out workshops and training op-portunities where teachers can engage in better practic-es and extend their knowledge and expertise. These workshops and training sessions will be conducted by

appropriate field experts.

We met with the Special Needs Team of the local WCED

office and identified a learner at risk. Lisa would most

probably fail Grade 9 unless urgent intervention was im-

plemented. With the help of funding, we managed to put

together an intervention team who worked out an individ-

ualised plan for Lisa to attend daily tutoring, occupational

therapy and counselling sessions in preparation for the

November examinations. We were excited to learn that

Lisa successfully passed her year and are moving on to

Grade 10. With the help of the team, suitable and man-

ageable subjects were chosen for Lisa and we will con-

tinue to support her academic growth.

We are looking forward to taking this project to the next

level in 2015 by helping more children and bringing infor-

mation to teachers.

OUR PLANS FOR NEXT YEAR

Our current projects are running successfully and we

plan to expand and build on it’s success.

Furthermore we have decided to bring information and knowledge to the teachers and communities by offering various talks, presentations and seminars which speak to issues relevant to the context of South African educa-

tion today.

Seminars planned for 2015

Bullying: Supporting both the victim and the bully

Learning differences and Learning needs

Culture and diversity in education

Motivation in learning and teaching

Training planned for 2015

Leadership training for teachers

Parenting courses

Various workshops and talks are also scheduled for 2015. Information on this can be obtained from our web-

site.

"Although as individuals we possess such

splendid gifts and talents, we must not deny

our inadequacies and blind spots. Once we

realise that other people compliment our

skills and we start combining our efforts, we

can reach much further much faster." -

Hestia Orchard

FUNDING AND RESOURCES

The Orchard Educational Support Services expresses our appreciation and gratitude for

the financial support from our donors. This support was critical in enabling us to obtain

our goals this year.

Deltamune

Malmesbury Toyota

Langhoogte Plase

Noeline and Kobus Stofberg

Standard Petroleum

Land van Kabouters

Riebeeck Dutch Reformed Church

The Orchard Educational Services

69 Bergzicht Street, Malmesbury,7300

022 482 1160 - 083 658 0088

hestia.orchard@gmail.com

www.orchardeducational.co.za