Nellmapius Preschool Update

July 20, 2021

- ASAP Executive Director, Nancy Schongalla-Bowman 

Nearly every day for the last two weeks, I have received before and after photos showing the renovation of the Phenyo Preschool in the township of Nellmapius.  The project is a collaborative effort between ASAP, PEN Forum (a nonprofit social service agency), the preschool and adjacent black church, and Stella Straat, a mostly white church in Pretoria.  Townships set aside for non-white people under Apartheid have huge needs, entrenched poverty, much goodwill, and a willingness to improve their own circumstances.   

There are about 50 creches or in-home daycares in a 6-mile radius of the Phenyo Preschool.  In these settings, often 20-40 children sit in front of a T.V. all day in one or two room apartments while their mothers work, look for work or beg.  Caregivers try to provide two meals but there are no parks, playgrounds nor money for toys.  In addition, caregivers typically lack the training to really lay an educational foundation.  Nevertheless, children born into poverty are like all children-- their bodies, minds and spirits are fully primed to learn through play. 

The Phenyo Preschool and adjacent church will serve as a hub with a robust Educational Toy Library to resource 1500 vulnerable but eager children being cared for in local creches.  Once the covid lockdown is lifted and schools reopen, caregivers will start coming for weekly mentoring in early childhood education.  They will learn from PEN Forum staff how the toys they borrow help children master new skills and have the joy of becoming teachers who help children develop cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally.

To transform Phenyo into a preschool hub for mentoring caregivers, repairs included a total overhaul of the roof, new doors, paint and carpeting.  My inbox exploded today with photos and videos when people involved in this project went to Phenyo to celebrate the upgrades.  A South African ASAP team member summed it up this way:

“The dream is that the children of this area can get the educational foundation to qualify for productive jobs – and eventually lift themselves and their families out of the poverty they are in now.  And this will all be because God brought people together – from the USA and South Africa, from different races and different languages, from different economic backgrounds – and made them channels of God’s love for the least and marginalized of society.”