A NEVER-ENDING STORY
Despite a record year for educational programme Rally to Read, the funding needs of underresourced schools are as acute as ever
Tens of thousands of rural and township children have been offered the chance to transform their lives since mid-February, with the delivery of vital teaching materials to underprivileged schools.
Sponsors of Rally to Read, the primary-schools programme in which the FM is an organising partner, have criss-crossed the country to supply schools in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and the Free State with educational materials. A Western Cape rally took place late last year.
Rally to Read celebrates its 25th birthday in 2023. Since 1998, it has brought sustainable education to nearly 750,000 children who might otherwise have gone without.
In this anniversary year, sponsors pledged a record R11m in support. The money pays for classroom libraries, stationery, sports equipment and teacher training. Schools are usually supported for three years, but this is being extended to four in many cases because of teaching time lost to Covid.
The pandemic also robbed sponsors of one of Rally to Read’s main attractions interacting with the children and seeing their academic progress. At the age of 14, the average rural child has a reading age of seven, rendering them incapable of continued education. Rally to Read bridges this gap, allowing them to progress to high school and sometimes beyond.
This interaction has resumed and sponsors are once again able to track the progress of children. One of the highlights of school visits is watching children proudly showing off their newfound reading and writing skills.
Though the R11m is a milestone, it should be put in perspective. At some independent schools, tuition and boarding fees for one child can add up to R250,000 so R11m is equivalent to the educational costs of 44 privileged children. That R250,000 fee could keep up to six small rural schools going with books and stationery for a year.
The R11m is also just one step along a very long road. The fight to provide education is never-ending which is why organisers have begun fundraising for the Rally to Read class of 2024.
A R45,000 sponsorship will equip a small school or several classes at a larger school with educational materials and teacher training for a year. It will also entitle the sponsor and up to three guests to join rallies to the schools they support; a R22,500 halfsponsorship allows two people.
Some rallies are one-day events, while others last the whole weekend. Participants travel in convoys to schools, some of which are in remote areas of the country, often accessible only by off-road vehicles. Food and accommodation costs are covered by the organisers.
Several of this year’s rallies were wholly sponsored by individual companies. Two of the programme’s most loyal supporters, Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) and Ford South Africa, underwrote rallies in the Eastern Cape
MBSA near its East London manufacturing base and Ford near Gqeberha, where it has an engine manufacturing plant. Ford also hosted a Gauteng rally in Mamelodi, Tshwane, near its Silverton vehicle assembly plant.
Mamelodi was one of two Gauteng rallies. The other, sponsored by financial services group Investec, was in Ekurhuleni. These were the first ever in Gauteng. The province lacks the deep rural areas that the programme usually serves. Once again, however, Covid made its mark and persuaded organisers that the crisis of underresourced schools also exists closer to home.
Most rallies enjoyed benign weather but not the one in the Bergville region of KZN. There, heavy rain turned rural roads into quagmires. Some rally participants had to be towed from the thick mud but so did many locals, grateful for the unexpected presence of 4x4s.
This rally was sponsored by the Jonsson Foundation, the social investment arm of the Jonsson Workwear group. The foundation is the national lead partner of Rally to Read, providing logistical and financial support.
As an extra this year, it supplied every child and teacher 6,500 in all at KZN rally schools with high-visibility belts so they are visible to motorists on unlit rural roads.
It is a measure of the importance of rallies that CEOs of participating companies make it their business to take part. Jonsson Workwear boss Nick Jonsson led his company’s rally, while Ford Africa president Neale Hill and MBSA CEO Andreas Brand were active participants in the Eastern Cape.
Brand, who arrived in South Africa from Germany last May, was “touched very deeply” by the experience so much so that MBSA donated a R1.3m Vito bus to the Read Educational Trust, which manages the Rally to Read programme through regional trainers who oversee schools’ progress.
For more information on Rally to Read, or to
become a sponsor, visit www.rallytoread.org.za