Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDs)

Over the past five years, Vodacom has identified and supported 32 ECDs. Assistance in terms of building and painting, fixing ablution facilities, decommissioning of pit latrines, improving security and providing ICT equipment in the form of tablets, TV, teacher laptop and educational equipment as well as a mobile library was given to all ECD centres. This support gives the learners access to technology and content that they would otherwise not have. The upgrades to the ECD centres also allows the owners to provide a better environment for learning and by so doing increases their chances of attracting more learners and more income. Some of the ECDs also receive support from Vodacom in the form of employee volunteerism, where the volunteers will work with the ECD practitioners and learners in how to use utilise the technology.

Schools of Excellence:
The Vodacom Foundation supports 30 schools from the 2598 supported schools to form part of an education ecosystem, the 30 schools are referred to as Schools of Excellence. The concept of schools of excellence is framed and aligned to the education definition that view these as schools that promote and support academic excellence thus enabling quality education for the previously disadvantaged communities. Within the SOE, the Foundation does not only focus on ICT provisioning but it provides a holistic support that encompasses infrastructure, partnerships, community involvement, provisioning of government approved e-learning content and teacher support. In particular, Vodacom has contributed the following to the 32 schools of excellence:

• A fully equipped, connected computer centre
• Upgrades to the infrastructure, replacing broken windows and doors, fixing collapsing ceilings
• Eradicating the pit latrines and replacing it with appropriate ablution facilities.
• Upgrades to the security of the school, this includes installing a strong room in all the schools.
• Each school has two ICT coordinators that provide technological support to learners and teachers.
• Each school also has a psychosocial support professional to assist learners with violence and bullying.

Community Hubs (Teacher Centres)
These are Vodacom supported community ICT centres and so far, more than 3500 female farmers have been trained in these centres. These centres are used by the Department of Basic Education to provide teacher training but it is also used by community members who need to access the internet.

Youth Academy
There are 10 Youth Academy centres across the country. Theses academies host accredited Technology programmes for out of school youth who were not able to go to university. Since inception, more than 1800 young people have been trained.

ICT Coordinators In order to support the graduates from the Youth Academy centres, Vodacom recruits and places some of them at the Schools of Excellence, the ECDs and the Vodacom supported NPOs. The purpose is to assist these institutions/organisations with technology but also to provide the volunteers with valuable work experience. We currently have 91 ICT coordinators across the country.

Psychosocial support
We have 41 psycho-social support workers placed at 30 of our schools of excellence. These professionals assist learners and educators in dealing with issues of bullying, gender-based violence and other psycho-social issues. More than 24000 learners in over 38 schools have been reached this past year

GBV Survivors ICT Training
The victim empowerment programme entails training survivors of violence in relevant ICT skills. In partnership with the DSD, Vodacom has trained more than 1950 survivors of violence in shelters across the country.