Marion Institute

The last couple of months I have been volunteering at a daycare/preschool/kindergarten called Marion Institute. The staff was more than welcoming to me, and very invested in the kids. It was just down the road from where we live, so I walked to it. My time there was spent playing with the kids and providing an extra set of hands.

Being at Marion reminded me kids are kids everywhere. For example, I played the same games with the Marion kids that I do with kids at home (I have to say I am a pretty good duck, fish, dog, lion, elephant, horse, and the list is endless). At the same time it showed me, if they aren’t given the necessary lessons early they’ll quickly fall behind. I saw this in the kindergarten class, where most of the class still does not know their basic colors. The problem of education is not unique to Marion’s, but is a very large social political issue in South Africa. With only 14 years of democracy, the new South Africa is still young. Hopefully in years to come the story of education will be changed.