The Sanlam Foundation is celebrating Sanlam’s centenary with the Blue Ladder Schools project to improve the lives of learners, parents and their immediate communities at schools across South Africa.‘We want to create a world of Wealthsmiths™ – a world of capable and economically active citizens,’ says Francois Adriaan, Head: Sanlam Foundation.‘Our employees also care about education, which came through strongly in the “1 000 days to 100 years” campaign.’ The campaign, which launched in September 2015, encouraged Wealthsmiths™ to set goals, get involved in community projects, and work together to create a world worth living in.
The power of education
‘Education isn’t just good for children or the right thing to do – it makes economic sense so it’s also good for nations. Investing in education is smart economics.’Education can put people on a path towards good health, empowerment and employment and help to build more peaceful societies. ‘And the benefits of girls’ education extend later in life to their own children, who are often healthier and more educated because their mothers went to school,’ Francois adds.
Sanlam’s approach
- Select schools that would benefit most from such an intervention, in collaboration with local departments of education
- Commence with a needs assessment, initially focusing on renovation and sanitation, which fosters a sense of pride and dignity
- Move into maths capacity-building, working with respected non-profit organisations skilled in this area
- Next, focus on leadership capacity development and social entrepreneurship as a way of developing sustainable solutions to the problem of school nutrition
- Underpin the above with employee volunteering and learning through play
- Instil a strong ethos of monitoring and evaluation throughout the investment
- Consolidate insights and learning to create a blueprint that can be used to expand the initiative throughout South Africa and other countries that could
Programme focus areas
- Maths capacitation
- Good numeracy is the best protection against unemployment, low wages and poor
- Infrastructure and sanitation
- Poor infrastructure leads to increased absenteeism
- Inadequate school sanitation impedes educational attainment
- Infrastructure and sanitation
- Poor infrastructure leads to increased absenteeism
- Inadequate school sanitation impedes educational attainment
- Children are vulnerable to the health consequences of poor sanitation
- Leadership
- Research shows that schools with strong leadership are more likely to succeed, particularly in terms of improving in maths and all other educational outcomes.
- Social entrepreneurship with focus on nutrition
- A hungry child is more vulnerable to certain diseases and can’t concentrate or learn effectively so we need to generate sustainable nutrition solutions.
