The strains of “Jingle Bells” had faded, the plastic holly packed away until next December and the “Back To School” in-store marketing began. The collective sigh from scholars and parents said: “Here we go again.” For many South African learners, a place in a classroom with quality education and preparation for life was not a foregone conclusion. At the start of the academic year, the country’s education, in general, is in a parlous state. The list of failures in ensuring a sound learning journey for all young South Africans is all too familiar.
The Domino Foundation’s mantra “Cradle-to-Career” inspires its teams daily impacting the lives of 12000 underserved people through its seven programmes: is foundational to all the NPO does taking its beneficiaries from disadvantage to opportunity. Domino’s marketing manager, Karen Brokensha, says that foundational education, literacy, life skills, career choices and access are critical in what the organisation provides and facilitates. From the earliest years in the Babies’ Home through to Matric and tertiary education, the programmes are concerned with the whole person’s healthy development: “Our Babies’ Home caters for the children’s early childhood development. This is also our ECD programme’s aim through ‘active learning’ input for effective holistic pre-school education in the 51 crèches with which we partner. Business-training empowers the centres to become sustainable small businesses, and instruction in paperless administration through technology is key…particularly significant as the theme of the UN’s International Education Day 2025 is ‘AI and Education’”.
The Life Skills programme grows learners’ self-competence and confidence, developing a healthy competitive spirit and sound leadership skills. With revelations of South Africa’s disastrous standard of reading-for-understanding, the programme plans to implement a reading programme from Grade 1 level. A sponsored Literacy Champion is seeing marked improvement in basic literacy skills of 200 Grade 8 to 10 secondary school learners. Karen went on to describe how the Skills Development programme, understanding the demands of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and the demands of the B-BBEE space: “The advantages of skills-based training far outweigh those of costly tertiary education and our focus has shifted to investing more fully in fewer candidates. This saw 80 unemployed youth added to data bases for enrolment into learnerships in 2024”
In Red Light, the anti-human-trafficking programme, training prior to the survivors’ re-entering the workplace is a priority. Career guidance, vocational and financial-planning training are provided, income-generating skills developed and internship and work experience opportunities made available.
Domino’s Nutrition programme operates both North and South of the city, collaborating with the ECD programme to provide learners daily with a nutritious porridge breakfast and a high-protein lunch, ensuring physical and academic school-readiness, and to collect data on stunting, wasting and obesity. “Many pre-schoolers’ low-protein diets stunt foundational body and brain development,” Karen explained, “and, with higher quintile schools not qualifying for the government nutrition programme, many under-resourced learners go the entire school day without a meal, unable to retain taught information.” The NPO provides meals for Grade 12 students in the study-heavy pre-exam Matric camps and during Matric finals.
Nobuhle Ndlovu.knows the Cradle-to-Career journey well. She was in Domino’s Life Skills programme and Girls’ Club and then benefitted from sandwiches supplied by the Nutrition programme supplied to Grade12s studying for their Matric exams. She received a bursary for a B Ed degree through Skills Development and went on to lead that programme. She is now a teacher at her alma mater, Amaoti No. 3 Secondary School. Nobuhle says Domino has played a vital role in keeping her focused on her dreams. Passionate about standing up for the voiceless and bringing self-empowerment opportunities to her community, she says: “I can do this for the new generation of learners!”
There are many opportunities for investment in education is an investment in our nation’s future and Karen can be contacted about these on 031 110 7030 or marketing@domino.org.za.
