PG BISON COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION PROJECT
Community Development, Strategic Partnerships, and Innovative Systemic Programmes in the Eastern Cape
On 22 May 2006, an agreement was reached between the Premier of the Eastern Cape, the Industrial Development Corporation, and PG Bison to initiate a project that would change the lives of the people of Ugie and its neighbouring town, Maclear. The project would see the construction of a state-of-the-art particleboard manufacturing and conversion plant—and a major investment back into the community, ensuring its development as a business imperative, rather than charity.
PG Bison partnered up with Infundo Consulting: a Level 2 social enterprise consultancy specialising in development; combined their resources and designed a map for the Ugie CREATE - education and community project. Influential, long-lasting results are achieved by strong partnerships between parties with a common goal, insight into the challenges, and the co-creation of solutions and impact measurement.
The corporate social investment initiative launched in 2009 affecting change for 4 800 learners in an initial 3, then later 4 schools, but soon flourished into a transformational process across the now Joe Qgabi District. Infundo provides additional development opportunities to officials and teachers beyond the immediate project scope. This ensures that the benefit of the programme is not limited to the four schools in Ugie / Maclear, but that maths, science, and accounting is positively supported across 22 high schools indirectly impacting a further 16 000 learners.
Infundo has used a “hands-on” approach, whilst simultaneously working towards systems transformation by seeing the community as an integrated complex whole. Scientifically grounded, systematic, and proved models of change and impact are applied, creating a learning culture across schools, organisations, and community structures. Infundo believed in small beginnings and then leveraging stakeholders for a community-wide intervention. Infundo addressed schools’ leadership, succession planning, Emotional Intelligence, teacher development, resourcing, strategic partnerships, skills development, and team building. Work was done with all these stakeholders and across the entire chain.
Much of the initial interventions had little to do with teaching. A priority was stakeholder engagement and ownership; then integrating support for caregiver groups—who work with the most marginalized, vulnerable community members—and counselling and psycho-social support for learners and their families. Trauma debriefing and counselling was offered and, thereafter, more skills based activities like teacher development were initiated. Community teams measured change themselves, to drive their own learning. The teams set out clear success indicators, measured by looking at factors which determine their own success. The key focus remained on how to create a growing organisation and community, driven by community ownership of the change.
The results of the community integrated support had an immediate impact early on. One school showed a pass rate increase from 23% to 69% in just one year, before any content based teacher support had begun. To date, the average matric pass rate has improved and stabilised by up to 20% across the district.
The youth programmes are offered to incumbent RCL, prefects, class monitors, and children who struggle with destructive behaviours, but show promise. The learning outcomes of this programme are leadership skills; mobilising of groups and task teams to work with social and school issues which impact the learners directly.
The CREATE project began to align outcomes to bring the Department of Basic Education and Infundo's objectives on the same page. The District recognised that the government alone could not tackle the triple challenge (unemployment, poverty, and inequality) facing rural schools. With the aid of PG Bison’s investments in the region, and the collaboration with Infundo Consulting, the Department of Education was able to re-affirm its core business of investing in education. From small starts there is now a core project team to align strategy and share budgets, thereby maximising impact. What started with a small project had a strong, domino effect on the entire district.
“It takes a village…”: CREATE began receiving project donations in part/kind from various, enthusiastic institutions to ensure that additional aspect of the project were covered; and who wanted to be part of a social capital project where collaborative input yields higher RoI. Lewis built classrooms and toilets to the value of R1,5M in CREATE schools with Project Build; UCT ran free teacher workshops with science resources; Intel ran free computer literacy workshops for the schools; and other funding partners were (but not limited to) Schoolnet, St Peters Prep, St Davids, St Andrew’s College, and Imsimbi Training.
Gold Peer Education Development Agency, with National Youth Development Agency funds, in partnership with Infundo, successfully placed 20 unemployed youth to assist in schools for 10 months; and trained them in peer mentoring. Infundo coordinated the unemployed youth (identified by District and principals) with strong maths and science skills, back in schools as tutors, on stipends supplementing dwindling teacher numbers in these high-demand subjects. The impact has been overwhelmingly positive in the schools – and the mutual benefit to the youth and the schools ensures the sustainability of this venture. Many of the youth are now studying at universities and remain connected to the community by assisting in holiday schools and coming back for training. Schools continue to use this model; to co-create new futures for the youth and the schools.
Despite the many social challenges the schools are showing their resilience and building strong governance and management structures. We have been able to build very sustainable relationships with all stakeholders—this has been key and the traction we have gained has been apparently quite unique for the area, and, in general, in education. An involved District--who has supported our efforts—contributed to the work, and promoted PG Bison.
Over the years, there have been clear and different needs that groups have required, and the project grown with them. We would not have seen the results we have, had we jumped right in without allowing people to discuss with us what they needed, to co-create the solution and partnership they wanted. This is a process of building people and teams for something new until people feel they can drive their own process.
PG Bison’s commitment is beginning to bear fruit—partnership with the community is widely seen as the one to trust long term—hence an increased openness to plan together; and to continue to journey together and learn together, for the mutual benefit of PG Bison and the community.
On 22 May 2006, an agreement was reached between the Premier of the Eastern Cape, the Industrial Development Corporation, and PG Bison to initiate a project that would change the lives of the people of Ugie and its neighbouring town, Maclear. The project would see the construction of a state-of-the-art particleboard manufacturing and conversion plant—and a major investment back into the community, ensuring its development as a business imperative, rather than charity.
PG Bison partnered up with Infundo Consulting: a Level 2 social enterprise consultancy specialising in development; combined their resources and designed a map for the Ugie CREATE - education and community project. Influential, long-lasting results are achieved by strong partnerships between parties with a common goal, insight into the challenges, and the co-creation of solutions and impact measurement.
The corporate social investment initiative launched in 2009 affecting change for 4 800 learners in an initial 3, then later 4 schools, but soon flourished into a transformational process across the now Joe Qgabi District. Infundo provides additional development opportunities to officials and teachers beyond the immediate project scope. This ensures that the benefit of the programme is not limited to the four schools in Ugie / Maclear, but that maths, science, and accounting is positively supported across 22 high schools indirectly impacting a further 16 000 learners.
Infundo has used a “hands-on” approach, whilst simultaneously working towards systems transformation by seeing the community as an integrated complex whole. Scientifically grounded, systematic, and proved models of change and impact are applied, creating a learning culture across schools, organisations, and community structures. Infundo believed in small beginnings and then leveraging stakeholders for a community-wide intervention. Infundo addressed schools’ leadership, succession planning, Emotional Intelligence, teacher development, resourcing, strategic partnerships, skills development, and team building. Work was done with all these stakeholders and across the entire chain.
Much of the initial interventions had little to do with teaching. A priority was stakeholder engagement and ownership; then integrating support for caregiver groups—who work with the most marginalized, vulnerable community members—and counselling and psycho-social support for learners and their families. Trauma debriefing and counselling was offered and, thereafter, more skills based activities like teacher development were initiated. Community teams measured change themselves, to drive their own learning. The teams set out clear success indicators, measured by looking at factors which determine their own success. The key focus remained on how to create a growing organisation and community, driven by community ownership of the change.
The results of the community integrated support had an immediate impact early on. One school showed a pass rate increase from 23% to 69% in just one year, before any content based teacher support had begun. To date, the average matric pass rate has improved and stabilised by up to 20% across the district.
The youth programmes are offered to incumbent RCL, prefects, class monitors, and children who struggle with destructive behaviours, but show promise. The learning outcomes of this programme are leadership skills; mobilising of groups and task teams to work with social and school issues which impact the learners directly.
The CREATE project began to align outcomes to bring the Department of Basic Education and Infundo's objectives on the same page. The District recognised that the government alone could not tackle the triple challenge (unemployment, poverty, and inequality) facing rural schools. With the aid of PG Bison’s investments in the region, and the collaboration with Infundo Consulting, the Department of Education was able to re-affirm its core business of investing in education. From small starts there is now a core project team to align strategy and share budgets, thereby maximising impact. What started with a small project had a strong, domino effect on the entire district.
“It takes a village…”: CREATE began receiving project donations in part/kind from various, enthusiastic institutions to ensure that additional aspect of the project were covered; and who wanted to be part of a social capital project where collaborative input yields higher RoI. Lewis built classrooms and toilets to the value of R1,5M in CREATE schools with Project Build; UCT ran free teacher workshops with science resources; Intel ran free computer literacy workshops for the schools; and other funding partners were (but not limited to) Schoolnet, St Peters Prep, St Davids, St Andrew’s College, and Imsimbi Training.
Gold Peer Education Development Agency, with National Youth Development Agency funds, in partnership with Infundo, successfully placed 20 unemployed youth to assist in schools for 10 months; and trained them in peer mentoring. Infundo coordinated the unemployed youth (identified by District and principals) with strong maths and science skills, back in schools as tutors, on stipends supplementing dwindling teacher numbers in these high-demand subjects. The impact has been overwhelmingly positive in the schools – and the mutual benefit to the youth and the schools ensures the sustainability of this venture. Many of the youth are now studying at universities and remain connected to the community by assisting in holiday schools and coming back for training. Schools continue to use this model; to co-create new futures for the youth and the schools.
Despite the many social challenges the schools are showing their resilience and building strong governance and management structures. We have been able to build very sustainable relationships with all stakeholders—this has been key and the traction we have gained has been apparently quite unique for the area, and, in general, in education. An involved District--who has supported our efforts—contributed to the work, and promoted PG Bison.
Over the years, there have been clear and different needs that groups have required, and the project grown with them. We would not have seen the results we have, had we jumped right in without allowing people to discuss with us what they needed, to co-create the solution and partnership they wanted. This is a process of building people and teams for something new until people feel they can drive their own process.
PG Bison’s commitment is beginning to bear fruit—partnership with the community is widely seen as the one to trust long term—hence an increased openness to plan together; and to continue to journey together and learn together, for the mutual benefit of PG Bison and the community.
A six year District wide project bearing fruit
Working with the District ManagementOur work has recently included coaching for DCES's and CES's. After having worked with one sector of the District management i.e. the Maths; Science and Technology Directorate under the inimitable Mr Zongwana - we have expanded our work to include coaching across the District structures. This was a joint decision, made by our team in the EC and Ms Fikeni - head of HR in the District. A key output of this is to build inter- and intra-team strength which will impact across the District. This has come after numerous operational workshops and strategic planning with the District Executive Management; and in discussion with PG BIson our client.
Skills DevelopmentOver the last 6 years we have trained and worked with the schools and school management in the following:
Strategic and change management Leadership and Management Budgeting and the PFMA Emotional Intelligence Personal Mastery Debriefing and team support for Caregivers Maths content Accounting English Science Life Sciences Team cohesion Coaching - individual and team Systems understanding and application of this to community and school concerns |
A Memorandum Of Understandingin 2012 an MOU was signed between the District Director Mr Maquatyana and Themba Siyolo of PG BIson. This detailed the work that would be done; as well as outlining the operational and co-budgeting that would allow for meaningful work to be completed as teams in the District. Upon discussion in late 2015 a decision was made to revisit the MOU and establish the parameters of a more recent MOU. A task team was put together encompassing leadership from the District management; PG BIson and Infundo to re-look the terms of reference and suggest any amendments to the larger executive teams. A meeting was held in Ugie at the PG Bison Board Plant on the 30 June 2016 to talk through the principles governing the MOU; and provide a platform for engaging in the challenges in the community in order to work more closely together for greater impact across the community. Mr Mpupu led his team in the meeting whilst Pieter De Wet led his Ugie team in the discussion. The MOU is being re-written with a view to launching and communicating its intent to the community soon.
Impact thus far |
UNEMPLOYED YOUTH PROJECT IN THE EASTERN CAPE – PARTNERING FOR LONG TERM IMPACT JULY 2015
infundo.weebly.com/gold-peer-education-and-unemployed-youth-project.html
Eastern Cape Matric results (UGIE) 2014
IINFUNDO spent time working with the trauma. When we identified the trauma where we thought there would be leadership or power struggles we worked systemically with the trauma entity. Trauma disconnects people from each other. They cannot connect emotionally; and although they want to; they cannot actually really care for each other; because they are in survival mode.
In a school this has very negative consequences. Teachers who are disconnected emotionally from their colleagues cannot care for each other; they are angry and resentful when they have to help their peers. They are suspicious and look only to fend for themselves. This symptom also comes out in the way they connect or don’t connect with their learners. Whilst on the surface they appear to be caring; they physically cannot care for someone else ahead of their own needs.
When we worked through these issues we found out that these teachers are burnt out; they are pre-occupied with taking care of themselves; constantly feeling under threat and totally self absorbed. This isn’t because they don’t care; they are beyond caring…because their brains are locked into survivalist thinking.
After working systemically; and shifting their perceptions. From subconscious pain to consciousness of their grief; and their inability to connect; the shift was palpable.
I think it is very hard to TELL someone to care more; or work harder; or be more of a team player; if you don’t assist them to shift the space they are in. Knowing in your HEAD where you need to be; and an ability to be able to do it is different. Inter generational trauma transfer means that you can have all the “stuckness” of trauma even if you have never been directly impacted by it. This scared me so much when I was told this; because it means that generations who were never directly affected by trauma were and continue to be traumatized.
We got some fantastic results once we had shifted the trauma. Teachers were willing to risk; try new things; work towards new realities; and engage with their issues. Within a short space of time they all went through strategic planning training. They were taught to think about their problems and find solutions.
One SMT member of a high school has taken all of this to heart. She is resolute in the manner in which she tackles issues. She sees a problem; doesn’t let it stand in her way and with her SMT they devised the following solutions:
1. They didn’t have parental involvement; not in numbers whichwere helpful to the school. So they refused to hand out reports unless caregivers or parents arrived to collect them. Over the course of 9 months; the parent numbers increased to almost a 90% attendance. As numbers climbed the SMT started dividing parents into grades and held meetings with them before reports were handed out. In this manner they were able to communicate effectively with illiterate parents. They were able to explain the rhythm of school life: preparation for exams; when tests were held etc they could also target parents of unruly children and ask for their assistance. Parents felt needed; appreciated and a vital part of the school; and they started to assist at home with supervision and discipline. Both in the school and in the parent’s eyes a partnership was formed.
2. Then the strike happened. SADTU teachers felt that their loyalties were divided. On one hand they wanted to honour the strike for fair wages; but as teachers they also needed to implement Grade 12 preliminary exams. The SMT brokered a very interesting deal with DoE; and the parents. Because they had strong relationships with their parents; who now felt a partnership and team spirit with them; they asked the DoE to allow the parents to invigilate the exams. Parents were trained; and deployed during the teachers’ strike. They collected exams from the teachers and administered the exams; delivering the papers to the teachers offsite who could now mark them. No loyalties were broken and parents felt now they could add value to their childrens’ education. Despite their illiteracy and lack of formal education they can play a vital part in the education they want for their children.
Of the 2 dysfunctional schools we worked in; one school went from 23% pass rate to 69% in the 18 months in which we worked with them. The other school went from 47 to 67%. What was more remarkable was that they were adamant that they were the reason that the marks had changed. Whilst they cknowledged the skills they had learnt they were clear that it was THEIR strategies which had turned their schools around.
On the face of this it would appear that we have failed. We were tasked to change things around in the schools in the community. What has happened is that the SMT’s feel that they have the power to change things. They feel that they hold the key. They feel that they have the power to change the destiny of their schools. They feel they are capable of making magic happen.
This is not nirvana; they know they have challenges; but they feel they can risk; make mistakes; learn from their mistakes; and try again. It has become a positive learning culture; which if encouraged and understood at SMT level can be inculcated and demonstrated to the learners.
I consider this to be changing cultures; mindsets and healing people of the belief that they cannot be more; do more; or change their circumstances. We all possess immeasurable power; unleashing this is what we dream of doing in education; and the heart of this is trauma. Unlocking this is key to changing the way we educate our future generations.
Our Schools
Here below a synopsis about the 2 schools which weren’t functioning at optimum. Because this is where the results matter the most; assisting schools who are already functioning; to function better is not where the challenges lie.
We worked in 2 schools: both struggling with functionality; in varying degrees.
School 1:
BEFORE: 1600 de-motivated learners. Found in a very poor community. Teachers are good: work hard and try to change the marks. They had a tenuous relationship with their community. No buy-in from the community and very poor parental input. Pass rate hovered around 60% for years; and then 45% for the most recent time.
AFTER: Pass rate changed within 18 months to 67%; parental involvement is at around 90%. Parents work in the school where strategies range from including them in the invigilation process or managing subs for absent teachers so that other teachers can work in that time. Or working as teachers’ assistants in packing and jobs where teachers then get more free time to teach. The key aspect here is that the teachers and parents are keen to work together devising strategies to assist each other in the sphere of their children’s education.
School 2:
BEFORE: teachers carried sticks and pipes to drive the kids into class. Anger is the main ingredient of the culture which pervades the classroom and staffroom. Pass rate is around 23% and the SMT is divided into 2 camps. One follows the headmistress and the other follows the deputy who acted as principal when the head was suspended. Dialogue was impossible and the staff was angry and militant. Many of them have symptoms of burnout.
AFTER: after 18 months pass rate is 69%. Still many challenges but the principal is about to retire. The teachers are being led by an incumbent head. He is strong and resilient and eager to learn although he does suffer from confidence issues. We have identified a strong male teacher who used to be very aggressive and is now committed to assisting the school to grow and develop. They have a long way to go but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Their leadership is in flux; heading into an important time which is as one head succeeds another. Our intention is to ensure that the leadership transition is smooth and growth continues.
In a school this has very negative consequences. Teachers who are disconnected emotionally from their colleagues cannot care for each other; they are angry and resentful when they have to help their peers. They are suspicious and look only to fend for themselves. This symptom also comes out in the way they connect or don’t connect with their learners. Whilst on the surface they appear to be caring; they physically cannot care for someone else ahead of their own needs.
When we worked through these issues we found out that these teachers are burnt out; they are pre-occupied with taking care of themselves; constantly feeling under threat and totally self absorbed. This isn’t because they don’t care; they are beyond caring…because their brains are locked into survivalist thinking.
After working systemically; and shifting their perceptions. From subconscious pain to consciousness of their grief; and their inability to connect; the shift was palpable.
I think it is very hard to TELL someone to care more; or work harder; or be more of a team player; if you don’t assist them to shift the space they are in. Knowing in your HEAD where you need to be; and an ability to be able to do it is different. Inter generational trauma transfer means that you can have all the “stuckness” of trauma even if you have never been directly impacted by it. This scared me so much when I was told this; because it means that generations who were never directly affected by trauma were and continue to be traumatized.
We got some fantastic results once we had shifted the trauma. Teachers were willing to risk; try new things; work towards new realities; and engage with their issues. Within a short space of time they all went through strategic planning training. They were taught to think about their problems and find solutions.
One SMT member of a high school has taken all of this to heart. She is resolute in the manner in which she tackles issues. She sees a problem; doesn’t let it stand in her way and with her SMT they devised the following solutions:
1. They didn’t have parental involvement; not in numbers whichwere helpful to the school. So they refused to hand out reports unless caregivers or parents arrived to collect them. Over the course of 9 months; the parent numbers increased to almost a 90% attendance. As numbers climbed the SMT started dividing parents into grades and held meetings with them before reports were handed out. In this manner they were able to communicate effectively with illiterate parents. They were able to explain the rhythm of school life: preparation for exams; when tests were held etc they could also target parents of unruly children and ask for their assistance. Parents felt needed; appreciated and a vital part of the school; and they started to assist at home with supervision and discipline. Both in the school and in the parent’s eyes a partnership was formed.
2. Then the strike happened. SADTU teachers felt that their loyalties were divided. On one hand they wanted to honour the strike for fair wages; but as teachers they also needed to implement Grade 12 preliminary exams. The SMT brokered a very interesting deal with DoE; and the parents. Because they had strong relationships with their parents; who now felt a partnership and team spirit with them; they asked the DoE to allow the parents to invigilate the exams. Parents were trained; and deployed during the teachers’ strike. They collected exams from the teachers and administered the exams; delivering the papers to the teachers offsite who could now mark them. No loyalties were broken and parents felt now they could add value to their childrens’ education. Despite their illiteracy and lack of formal education they can play a vital part in the education they want for their children.
Of the 2 dysfunctional schools we worked in; one school went from 23% pass rate to 69% in the 18 months in which we worked with them. The other school went from 47 to 67%. What was more remarkable was that they were adamant that they were the reason that the marks had changed. Whilst they cknowledged the skills they had learnt they were clear that it was THEIR strategies which had turned their schools around.
On the face of this it would appear that we have failed. We were tasked to change things around in the schools in the community. What has happened is that the SMT’s feel that they have the power to change things. They feel that they hold the key. They feel that they have the power to change the destiny of their schools. They feel they are capable of making magic happen.
This is not nirvana; they know they have challenges; but they feel they can risk; make mistakes; learn from their mistakes; and try again. It has become a positive learning culture; which if encouraged and understood at SMT level can be inculcated and demonstrated to the learners.
I consider this to be changing cultures; mindsets and healing people of the belief that they cannot be more; do more; or change their circumstances. We all possess immeasurable power; unleashing this is what we dream of doing in education; and the heart of this is trauma. Unlocking this is key to changing the way we educate our future generations.
Our Schools
Here below a synopsis about the 2 schools which weren’t functioning at optimum. Because this is where the results matter the most; assisting schools who are already functioning; to function better is not where the challenges lie.
We worked in 2 schools: both struggling with functionality; in varying degrees.
School 1:
BEFORE: 1600 de-motivated learners. Found in a very poor community. Teachers are good: work hard and try to change the marks. They had a tenuous relationship with their community. No buy-in from the community and very poor parental input. Pass rate hovered around 60% for years; and then 45% for the most recent time.
AFTER: Pass rate changed within 18 months to 67%; parental involvement is at around 90%. Parents work in the school where strategies range from including them in the invigilation process or managing subs for absent teachers so that other teachers can work in that time. Or working as teachers’ assistants in packing and jobs where teachers then get more free time to teach. The key aspect here is that the teachers and parents are keen to work together devising strategies to assist each other in the sphere of their children’s education.
School 2:
BEFORE: teachers carried sticks and pipes to drive the kids into class. Anger is the main ingredient of the culture which pervades the classroom and staffroom. Pass rate is around 23% and the SMT is divided into 2 camps. One follows the headmistress and the other follows the deputy who acted as principal when the head was suspended. Dialogue was impossible and the staff was angry and militant. Many of them have symptoms of burnout.
AFTER: after 18 months pass rate is 69%. Still many challenges but the principal is about to retire. The teachers are being led by an incumbent head. He is strong and resilient and eager to learn although he does suffer from confidence issues. We have identified a strong male teacher who used to be very aggressive and is now committed to assisting the school to grow and develop. They have a long way to go but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Their leadership is in flux; heading into an important time which is as one head succeeds another. Our intention is to ensure that the leadership transition is smooth and growth continues.