Christmas gifts for Swindon partner school in South Africa

Children who packed the boxes for air freighting with members of Swindon Family Church

Peatmoor partnership expands to set up community education project

Peatmoor Community School's links with South Africa are being strengthened and widened by the delivery in December of a huge collection of educational materials and donated goods to Dihlabeng School in the mountainous region of Clarens, three hours from Johannesburg.

Peatmoor has worked with Swindon Family Church for the last two years to establish educational links and children and parents have sent large quantities of materials to South Africa. There is regular e-mail contact between children in both countries and last year teachers from the school spent a week there.

With a Department of Education and Skills Building Bridges grant to promote global citizen-ship, Peatmoor has teamed up with Leadenhall School in Salisbury to work on a series of projects over the next three years to develop educational opportunities here and to help Dihlabeng School and its surrounding community. This term's project has been 'Reduce, recycle and reuse' and children and church members have packed about forty boxes of goods - everything from books and games, classroom whiteboards and easels, clothing, 5 a side football goals and pre-school play equipment, spectacles and several computers with screens. Leadenhall School has also collected a similar quantity, and through their contacts with the Army have arranged for everything to be flown from RAF Lyneham to South Africa at the end of the month.


Dihlabeng School

Headteacher Terri Peacock said she had spent two weeks over half term in Clarens helping to set up a community project associated with Dihlabeng School. "We hope to rent a house where up to ten adults will take courses in literacy and childcare and development. I am really pleased that we've had five sewing machines donated which will be used to make puppets to convey educational and cultural stories in the district around Dihlabeng.

"This is very much a two-way partnership. The condition of the grant is that everything we're doing will be used in our curriculum and Dihlabeng will be sending us videos and a newspaper they plan to produce to track how the donations are used, both in the school and in their community."

Mark Thornett, pastor of Swindon Family Church, said, "the links made between Swindon and Dihlabeng over the last two years have been amazing. It's a pleasure to work with the children, parents and staff at Peatmoor to develop the links. What is happening is wonderful."

Although the Army is providing the air freight and Great Western Packaging, Mailboxes Etc. and MAN-ERF have made donations of boxes and bubblewrap, fundraising continues to pay the transportation costs to Dihlabeng and also VAT imposed by the South African government on imported donations.