AFRICA DREAM PARTNERSHIP

The Butterfly Project is aimed at young girls between the ages of 5 and 12. The goal is to improve school retention by providing development in literacy, math, problem solving, fine & gross motor skills, as well as growth in self-confidence and emotional resilience. We run this program at Thomas Wildschutt Junior Primary School. We currently have twenty girls, kindergarten through third grade, in this program that meets daily Mondays through Thursdays. We will continue to support them through the completion of their Grade 7 year and will also add a new group of 5 kindergarten girls each year. If a student can't pay their tuition to the public school or afford their uniform, they are expelled. In addition to academic support, we also provide a scholarship to cover their school fees and facilitate outings throughout the year to give them an opportunity to experience learning beyond just the classroom. As with our Adopt-A-School program our goal is to produce well-educated young women, who are also spiritually and emotionally mature. We instill in them a sense of self-worth and confidence and inspire them to value the right things. Right thoughts produce right actions, right actions produce right habits, and right habits produce right character. This is our aim for our young women.

Through our Adopt-A-School project, we meet the practical needs of our public schools that are severely under-resourced. Currently only 3 out of 10 young people finish High School, and only one of those will go on to study at a tertiary institution. Here is a list of the practical things we do through this project: Academic Tutoring In our Adopt-A-School project we have a tutoring program where 69 grade 9's -12's and 90 grade 8's are tutored on a weekly basis at Thandokhulu High School. Our goal through the tutoring program is to help the students successfully grasp the scope of their work and enter grade 10 with greater skills and confidence. Grade 9 is the point at which the vast majority of students drop out of school, so this is a critical stage in ensuring retention of more students staying in school. The STEAM+ high school students are achieving similar success. * The 9th grade students' average grades increased 11%. One student increased 34%. * The 10th graders' math scores averaged 80%. Their classmates averaged 43%. * In science, the 10th grade students averaged 74%; other students averaged - 48%. * 90% of the STEAM+ students gave the program a 10 out of 10.