"No child in paternoster
should ever be without a dream."
History and concept of the Paternoster Partnership
Paternoster - a place with an uncertain future
Paternoster is a small, remote fishing village on the west coast of South Africa, about a two-hour drive from Cape Town. About 2,500 people live there, most of them so-called "colored people", who traditionally made their living from fishing. This is hardly possible today and the children and young people are trying to reorient themselves.
About half of the children in Paternoster only grow up with their mother. Some mothers became pregnant too early and try to solve everyday problems with drugs and alcohol. As a result, many children are born with FA syndrome (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). All children come together at St. Augustine's Primary School, whether completely healthy, HIV-positive, with behavioral disorders or learning disabilities. Even if the children do not meet the performance requirements, they are transferred to the next grade level. This results in performance-heterogeneous classes in which teaching and learning is made more difficult. The teachers are struggling on the one hand with discipline problems and on the other hand with math and reading weaknesses and even illiteracy. Parental support is not to be expected. Earning a living is the priority. The children spend most of their time on the streets. They often deal to secure the family income.
The children in Paternoster dream of becoming fishermen, just like their great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers. But fishing quotas are shrinking on South Africa's west coast, and so are the opportunities for children to follow in their ancestors' footsteps. What should the children dream of now?
Since October 2016 we have been gradually implementing an afternoon program aimed at the 200 6 to 13 year olds at St. Augustine's Primary School. On the one hand, our goal is to look after as many children as necessary in the afternoon. On the other hand, we want to create an offer that, in addition to the obligatory homework supervision, offers content that conveys age-appropriate life skills and abilities. In small working groups, the children learn, among other things, how to play chess, create a school magazine or program Lego robots.
Start of the commitment by our foundation in 2016
Since October 2016 we have been gradually implementing an afternoon program aimed at the 200 6 to 13 year olds at St. Augustine's Primary School. On the one hand, our goal is to look after as many children as necessary in the afternoon. On the other hand, we want to create an offer that, in addition to the obligatory homework supervision, offers content that conveys age-appropriate life skills and abilities. In small working groups, the children learn, among other things, how to play chess, create a school magazine or program Lego robots.
During the first four months of our work at the primary school in Paternoster, the afternoon program focused on teaching singing, dancing, drama and the English language. The work of the various working groups culminated in the performance of the children's musical "The Four Color Land". 150 school children, almost the whole school, participated in the community project. On the small stage of the community hall in Paternoster, the children presented themselves to their families and friends full of self-confidence. The children's talents were specifically promoted during the work on the musical and the children grew with their tasks. A project that not only benefited the children, but the entire village.
Further development of our work through cooperation
cooperation with universities
The implementation of a program for teaching life skills is only possible with the use of qualified, committed and open-minded volunteers. Therefore, one of the cornerstones of our concept is to place students who are in pedagogical training, have just completed one, or are studying social affairs. Together with theUniversity of Education in Weingartenand theCooperative State University in Stuttgartwe carefully select young people who not only live our program but also help shape it and thus develop it further.
Cooperation between fisheries, PPP and foundation
Our program is supported by local cooperation partners such as the fisheries, which is the largest local employer, above all the managing director Jaco van der Westhuisen. Further support comes from the committeePaternoster People's Partnership (PPP), led by the entrepreneur and part-time social worker Sanita van der Merwe, who has tirelessly realized a wide range of activities and further training for small groups of children and adults in the past. Your ideas and valuable experiences flow into the conception of the program and are further developed. Together we design the "Paternoster Volunteer Project".
The reading club – symbiosis of local and German volunteers
Reading is the key to education. Education, in turn, is the prerequisite for a future-oriented and successful life. Therefore, the promotion of reading is an important mission of our foundation, which is also consistently implemented in Paternoster. Unfortunately, reading difficulties are one of the basic problems that run through all age groups at St. Augustine's Primary School. And there are some children who finish elementary school without being able to read. Ever since our volunteers moved into Paternoster, English has been read out to them every day. In addition, children who can read are given space and time to read for themselves. With the founding of the reading club "Paternoster Story Hook" the range of reading is completed by Anfrikaans. We were able to recruit local journalist Joan Kruger to run the reading club. She coordinates local and German reading volunteers. Since then, children have been read aloud in small groups and in age-specific Africanans and English.
Volunteer program also for German and South African students
In April 2018, the idea of integrating South African students into the volunteer program became concrete. For this reason, we initiated the 1st Paternoster Project Conference" in order to define possible areas of application for South African students together with the existing cooperation partners, representatives from politics and church and professors from the South African University in Stellenbosch and to consider together which skills the children should be taught to be able to survive in the paternoster in the future.
A year after the start of the program, the first German students from the Stuttgart Cooperative State University travel to Paternoster to begin imparting skills very early in the children´s lives. The students will read aloud in the kindergarten and preschool in the mornings, encourage the children through play and support the teachers in the afternoon program at the elementary school. For the first time, thanks to these students, there will be swimming lessons for the school children. Because neither the fishermen who go out to sea every day nor the children have yet learned to swim. There is no swimming pool in Paternoster. The sea is too rough, too cold all year round and the weather too changeable for learning to swim. That is why we are looking for sponsors worldwide for the construction of a training swimming pool in Paternoster. Together with the school authorities in Vredenburg, we are looking for a solution as to how the swimming pool 20 km away, which is used by two other schools, could also be used by us temporarily.
