Our Kids Need Quality Schooling

Daniel (8) and Damian (5)

just love their school, and since attending there from 2015, they have both thrived and grown in leaps and bounds!

Daniel is a real star, picking up a minimum of 10 merits per term for his mathematics and languages. Daniel is a real drama king, having picked up two Gold Awards for his speeches in English and Afrikaans, and his passion for soccer has no bounds, regularly being picked for the under-9 A-team. Damian's speech has improved in leaps and bounds since starting at Grade Pre-R, and his confidence and friend-making abilities have picked up, with his most recent accomplishment finally learning how to tie his shoes, a task he is immensely proud of.

Sadly, though, their dreams and our hopes are about to come to a crashing end, if we don't manage o raise the school fees needed. I have been without an income since September 2016, when I left my previous employer to join a digital services startup. Everything looked excellent on paper, a chance for me to drastically improve my family's financial security. But life has a way of not keeping to script. The poor economy, cash flow problems at our customers and intense competition from hundreds of low-cost and low-quality startups led to our company not being able to generate any meaningful income.

I have been job hunting since January 2017, and we have managed to keep body and soul together by means of help from family. Unfortunately, the assistance is not enough to cover school fees. While I will continue to search for employment, and while their mom and my wife tries everything from Reiki to Herbalife, we sadly do not have the luxury of waiting for our plans to materialise. We urgently need to pay their school fees, and do not want to add to their distress by having to yank them out of their school and find places at the already crowded government schools in our area.

We have managed to buy some time with the school, but their patience is not infinite, especially since the school has been bought out by an education conglomerate which sees us as merely figures on a balance sheet, and not the flesh and blood family with hopes, and dreams and aspirations for their children.

We fully intend to pay forward any assistance we receive, because that is who we are: people who appreciate help and look for any opportunities to help others in turn, as and when it is needed.

So please help us keep our sons' dreams alive.