The Shine Literacy Project
“Education the mind without educating the heart is no education at all” – Aristotle
In and around Cape Town you can find many volunteer projects to be part off. One of the projects that opened my eyes was Shine Literacy. Thanks to this beautiful non profit organization I had the opportunity to visit several Primary schools in Cape Town and also in the townships like Delft, Guguletu and Khayelitsa.
South Africa’s literacy rates remain stubbornly low. Many children face multiple deprivations from birth, which directly impact on their ability to learn. These include poor nutrition, disease, violence and abuse and impoverished living conditions. Shine Literacy’s programs are helping to transform the prospects of some of South Africa’s most vulnerable children by breaking the destructive cycle of poor literacy, low educational attainment, wasted potential and poverty. Shine does this by providing structured English literacy support to children, providing storybooks and readers and empowering parents and caregivers through Family Literacy Workshops.
Pumza was more than happy to have me on board and we agreed on two days of shooting their projects. I was walking on clouds because now I had the opportunity to make an impact with my passion. With my camera in my hand I entered the different classrooms and sat quiet as a “fly on the wall” to take good images of the kids in the Shine project. My images will be used for fundraising, social media ect. I realized how lucky I was to go to these places because normally as a tourist these doors stay shut. Thanks to Shine and especially Pumza, I was able to learn so much more about the culture of South Africa. This experience was a real education for my heart and soul.
Thank you!