Hluma Afterschool Programme

HLUMA AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMME

The main purpose of the Hluma Programme is to equip young people to overcome the everyday issues faced by those growing up in impoverished communities. We do this by:

establishing in them a sense of hope and purpose
cultivating their self-confidence and
nurturing their resilience in a safe and fun setting.

The programme gets children off the streets in the gap between the end of school and their parents’ return from work, which is when young people are most vulnerable to the high levels of gang violence, rape and other physical attacks in the area. We also stay open over the school holidays.

HIuma school children learn:

life skills
health education
receive 1-2-1 tutoring in reading, comprehension and maths and
support with their schoolwork.

As well as learning opportunities, Hluma provides:

nutritious meals (as many of the children are malnourished). We have found that eating together plays a key role in fostering positive relationships in the group.
a reading room where children have a wide choice of books to sharpen their reading skills and develop their imaginations for fun and
self-esteem building.

We now have over 80 children and teenagers each week, ranging from 9-15 years. Demand is high, so we plan to extend the programme to reach many more children soon.

A hluma good news story ● A hluma good news story ● A hluma good news story ● A hluma good news story ● A hluma good news story ● A hluma good news story ● A hluma good news story

We want to tell you a heart-warming, hope-filled story of hope about Rupert*, a young school pupil who comes to our NewDay United HLUMA homework sessions.

Rupert was one of the first children to join Hluma; he really struggled with Maths and couldn’t read at all. With consistent work over the past few months by our facilitators, we are all so proud of everything that he has accomplished.

We had some sessions with him before the June 2019 exams, where we gave him some nursery rhymes to learn as well as some reading homework. This would be given out at the Thursday session and then he would come in on a Monday and read the story to us.

On the Monday, he was the first one to come and proudly tell us that he had done his homework and then he would read the story to us brilliantly!

His marks for the third term went up amazingly, for Home Language he rose to Code 4, he also went from being Code 3 to Code 5 for English. This is an incredible jump, and especially amazing for a child who couldn’t read at all a few months ago! His Maths also went up from a Code 3 to Code 5, as well as his Life Skills rising from 40% to 60%!

We believe that this is the wonderful type of growth that can occur when children receive support and time.

*not his real name

We are so proud of Rupert and our Hluma team for this improvement!