Read Educational Trust is a non-governmental organisation active in rural and town schools in South Africa. Read enables the further training of teachers, and provides the schools with material. The teachers are trained how to use resources for teaching children to read and write, and are taught the options of effectively integrating these into lessons. Furthermore, Read trains carers as part of the programme for the benefit of children’s early development, and provides them with educational material and toys. Read was established in 1979 and, since then, has continued to develop. Read’s first project was providing schools in Soweto with libraries. Today, Read works in close cooperation with the education ministry, private donors and schools in order to stem the crisis in the field of education in South Africa.

www.read.co.za

Since 2010, the Roger Federer Foundation has been supporting the “Growing to Read Programme” in the province of Limpopo. The objective of the programme is to give small children the chance of a better start to their schooling. Support of the child’s early development increases his or her learning potential, applying it early on. They are taught the basics of reading and arithmetic. Furthermore, in workshops, their parents discover how they can become involved in their children’s education. 2011 the program has been expanded on the Grade R level, the preschool year children have to pass before entering into primary school. Due to the good results of the first two years READ is able to inlcude aditional 25 crèches into the programme and scale the engagement up. The total support for this initiative is reaching an amount of CHF 900,000 over a period of three years (2012-2015). The programme encompasses the following measures:

• The establishment and support of 40 day nurseries and 15 Grade R-level classes in the region of Limpopo in the north-east of South Africa
• Provision of the infrastructure and practical games, materials and equipment
• Training of specialists and advanced training for teachers
• Regular hosting of seminars for the parents
• All children from the day nurseries successfully move up to the Grade R-level and finally to primary school at the end of two resp. 3 years
• Embedment in the national education system, sensitisation of the local authorities towards the importance of early education.