Fund helps against pandemic’s learning gaps
Too little support for children with learning disabilities
To counter the gaps left by the Covid-19 pandemic in the education program, Wyna Hohne founded the Ayuda Special Education Fund to assist parents and children who are currently experiencing a financial backlog.“I run a kindergarten myself and we lost approximately N$300 000 during the pandemic. There is a gaping hole in parents’ finances,” she says.
Hohne says the nearly N$66 000 collected during Ayuda's first raffle will be used next year to support two families in five schools with a contribution of N$25 000 a year.
“We intend to help ten children next year. We would like to do more, but for now, this is our starting point,” Hohne says.
Hohne says that children with learning disabilities lie close to her heart, precisely because there is often a lack of support for these children.
“In many cases, you can have one teacher for two children (with learning disabilities). These children end up having to attend special schools. I find that children with learning disabilities are often very frustrated in mainstream schools. We also want to help here, but we will evaluate each case per school.”
She also shares her frustration at the lack of schools for children with autism.
Hohne argues that teaching in the foundation phase sets the pace for a child's school career, but explains that negligence on the part of parents in many cases hinders their children’s chances of adequate educational foundations.
“In my experience, the larger schools do not give enough individual attention to pupils, but this also comes down to the parent’s responsibility towards their children.
“Some parents are simply too lazy to wake up their children on time and bring them to school, then the children only arrive at school at 09:00 when the children have playtime. In the end, they get about an hour's worth of learning from their school day. And it happens often.”