ASAP Overview Winter 2025
Adopt a South African Preschool (ASAP) funds Educational Toy Library Training Centers, for vulnerable children to gain the foundation for school success. Essential life skills develop in safe, caring, and stimulating settings where children learn through play. Sadly, countless South African children languish in overcrowded, under-resourced daycares.
Daycare owners in struggling communities are untrained entrepreneurs who offer low-cost childcare to feed their own families. ASAP and our nonprofit partner PEN (Participate, Envision, Navigate) establish Preschool Support Centers with Toy Libraries within walking distance of 30 informal daycares. At weekly curriculum sessions and mentoring visits owners learn how the toys, games, and resources they borrow stimulate development. They gain skills as teachers and businesswomen. Their centers begin to function as preschools.
In four years, ASAP donors funded 8 Toy Library-Training Centers serving:
225 preschools, over 1,000 women and 11,000 children!
Why Our Mission Matters:
First grade predicts life success. 90% of brain development happens (or not) by age 5.
25% of South African 5-year-olds have physical and cognitive stunting due to malnutrition.
80% 4th graders do not understand what they read; 40% cannot read at all.