EDUCARE MPAME
How it all began
Our Story
For most of our working lives, Cape Town was home. Tony worked as a Civil Engineer, while I, Jean-Marie Robertson, was a Personal Trainer with a passion for early childhood literacy and volunteer work.
Our love of the Wild Coast led us to Mpame, where we met dedicated teachers who shared a dream of giving local children the opportunity to attend preschool. At the time, there were no early learning facilities in the village. What began as small donations of books, toys and educational resources soon grew into something much bigger.
In 2016, we made the life-changing decision to leave Cape Town behind and move permanently to Mpame.
Our vision was simple: to give every child the best possible start in life through quality early childhood education.
Life in Mpame:
Educare Mpame’s philosophy of living alongside the community rather than simply working in it.
When we first arrived in Mpame, we rented a traditional round hut nestled within a family homestead. Surrounded by breathtaking hills and endless views, it was the perfect place to begin our journey—although life in this remote rural community came with its challenges.
With no electricity, no indoor plumbing and only a pit toilet, everyday tasks required creativity and determination. The nearest town with medical care, banking and shopping is still more than four hours away. Step by step, we improved our little home, adding a shower, a flushing toilet and running water before finally building our own modest home in 2022. Today, our thriving vegetable garden provides fresh produce for our table and our preschool meals.
But the greatest part of living in Mpame has been becoming part of the community. Over the years, we have formed a special bond with a wonderful group of local children who visit us almost every day. Together we bake, cook, garden, play and learn new skills. Weekends are often spent exploring the nearby rock pools, swimming, picnicking and simply enjoying the beauty of the Eastern Cape.
These everyday moments have built relationships based on trust, friendship and belonging. They remind us that lasting change begins not with projects, but with people. By living alongside the community we serve, we are building hope, one child, one family and one shared experience at a time.
When we arrived in Mpame we soon realised that almost 90% of the village was illiterate. There is no high school in the village and kids have to travel far to attend one. There is also a 95% unemployment rate and people mostly rely on government grants.
In the beginning, I worked as an assistant teacher for English literacy at the local Mpame Junior Secondary school but after a year realised that the focus of my working with young students lay elsewhere. We seized a key opportunity when the local chief suggested finishing the semi-built preschool buildings. With support from friends and a generous sponsor, we confidently built two new ECDC’s, securing a brighter future for the community’s children.
Educare Mpame is a nonprofit company
The creches Little Flower, Sunshine and Siyakhula operate under the Educare Mpame umbrella.
In late 2018, Chris North, a South African living in Australia, sought to sponsor a child. Local resident Nelca Ganda suggested opening a creche, leading to the launch of Sunshine in February 2018 in Mdikana Township.
By March, Educare Mpame South Africa was registered as a nonprofit. In August, we opened another creche in Nqankanqa Township, managing two creches for about 45 children.
In July 2021, we were asked to take over two partially built creches. With funding support from the Sausen and Warner families in Germany, who formed the nonprofit Bildungsforderung Transkie, we initiated the project.
Initially, we relied on family and friends for funding. Our first major sponsorship came from Bildungsforderung Transkie for the new creches, followed by support from Cape Kalula Foundation, Echo Tanks, Investec, Solon Foundation, Bridge-ed Foundation, The Lunchbox Fund, and My School.
The monthly running cost for both creches is R 35,000 for 70 children, or R 500 per child.
In 2021, Nikola Geiger from SES visited to train teachers, integrating the Montessori method into our curriculum.
Educare Mpame has positively impacted our remote community, leading parents and children to prioritize education and seek better opportunities.
In 2026 we opened another creche in Zwelitsha Township. We called it Siyakhula Kids. ‘We are growing’. We aim to make Educare Mpame sustainable, discussing ways to employ a manager within the next year for better oversight and long term sustainability.
Our Approach
Language of Learning and Teaching
Our preschool is multilingual. Education in rural governments schools is only in isiXhosa. Furthermore schools in Mpame teaches only up to grade 9. After this, parents need to send their children to out-of-town schools, only if they have the funds. Here they arrive with no English and therefore the failure rate is about 90%. We teach in both English and isiXhosa to give these children a better chance to of making a success at this transition.
Excellent Foundation
We wish to provide our community's children with a solid foundation in education. Where there had been no preschool education before, we now aim to prepare our learners to be at the mainstream school entrance level when they leave our preschool.
What we Teach
Like every quality preschool, we build strong foundations in literacy and numeracy through play-based learning that prepares children for primary school.
In our rural community, however, education extends far beyond reading and counting. We also help children develop the life skills and values that will guide them throughout their lives. We teach kindness, respect for teachers, parents, peers and the environment. We encourage good manners by practising simple words like "please" and "thank you". We teach children to care for their surroundings by not littering, to resolve conflict without hitting, and to treat animals with kindness and respect.
These lessons may seem simple, but they are life-changing. By nurturing confidence, empathy, responsibility and respect from an early age, we are helping to raise a generation of children who are better prepared not only for school, but for life.
The values we teach today become the communities our children will build tomorrow. Every lesson is an investment in a kinder, healthier and more hopeful future.
Meals
We are serving 70 meals per day!
Thanks to the generous support of the LunchBox Fund, every child at Educare Mpame receives a nutritious cooked meal each day. Our menu includes hot maize meal porridge, samp and beans, pap with spinach, and rice with soya mince, all complemented by fresh vegetables grown in our school gardens. After playtime, every child also enjoys a refreshing glass of juice.
For many of our learners, this is the only cooked meal they will receive that day. A nutritious meal helps children concentrate, participate, and develop to their full potential, laying the foundation for lifelong learning.
In 2025 alone, we served more than 10,000 nutritious meals to children in our community. Every plate represents more than food—it is an investment in a child's health, education, and future.
Community Involvement
We wish to involve the local community as much as possible. We have the full support of the local headman and his council. Sunshine and Little Flower each employs a teacher and a cook from the local community.
Including the Parents
'In rural communities, parents often place all responsibility for their children's education on the teachers. Most parents here have unbelievable survival skills and intuition, but not much formal education. We want to get our parents involved in this process and therefore we hold parent's workshops where we teach them strategies for getting involved at home, such as telling their children bedtime stories and reinforcing the principles we teach at school.
Our Mission
- To improve the standard of education in the Mpame area by creating creches for foundation education.
- To supply volunteer teachers to assist at the two schools in Mpame.
- To create extramural activities for the upliftment of the youth of Mpame.
Our Aims & Goals
- To create and maintain four creches in the Mpame area so that when learners attend pre-school, they will be on the equivalent level of the elite city areas of South Africa.
- To construct accommodation for local and overseas volunteer teachers to come and assist with education at local schools in Mpame.
- To offer extracurricular activities aimed at empowering and uplifting the youth in the community.
- To identify and assist learners who could apply for scholarships at elite schools in
South Africa after completion of their education in Grade Nine in Mpame.
Our Team
Prof. Leonie Viljoen
Director
Tony Robertson
Managing Director
Nomzamo "Zamoh" Sinono
Director Teacher
Jean-Marie Robertson
Head of Education
Nthombuzuko "Ntosh" Cobothi
Teacher
Namhla "Tinkerbell" Gosa
Teacher
Azola
Assistant and Cook
Nthombuzuko "Ntosh" Cobothi
Teacher
Namhla "Tinkerbell" Gosa
Teacher
Sponsor a Child
Portion Sponsor:'R200/month (R2400/year)
Sponsor a Teacher
Portion Sponsor: R500/month (R6000/year)