Six years of Project Zulu

Project Zulu is a charity based at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) that supports educational projects in the Madadeni Township in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. For the last six years Project Zulu has been sending student volunteers to the township to exchange their skills with partner schools in the community to help increase lifelong learning opportunities for young people. UWE Bristol students from a range of different subject disciplines have spent their summer breaks volunteering as part of the project.

Naomi Steeds, Project Zulu co-ordinator, gives a potted history of the work of UWE Bristol student volunteers.

In 2012 Project Zulu sent its first group of Primary Education students to work in Madadeni schools for four weeks, sharing their newly acquired knowledge and skills while also learning from and collaborating with local teachers.

In 2015, with Township Teaching well established, Project Zulu introduced Township Rugby to their summer volunteering programme. A group of UWE Bristol rugby players volunteered to teach tag rugby in the township schools. The players supported the charity’s new learning through sport initiative by coaching in schools and ending their volunteering with a schools’ tag rugby tournament. They also trained with and played for a local township team.

In August 2016 the charity expanded again, responding to the needs of the schools to develop their water facilities and for IT support. This provided volunteering opportunities for students from the university’s Faculty of Environment and Technology.

The water engineering students volunteered their time in Siyawela Primary School supporting its need for a reliable and continuous water supply, of which there is a shortage during the driest months of the year. Throughout these months water availability can be a challenge and therefore it’s important that the school can keep the children hydrated. The students carried out multiple surveys and are currently developing proposals which will enable the school to harvest and filter rainwater and end their water shortage problems. This proposal will be implemented with further UWE student volunteers this August 2017.

An additional two students from the Faculty of Environment and Technology worked with one of their lecturers on a computer networking project at Jobstown Primary School, another rural township school. The team of three improved the school’s computer network infrastructure while also helping the school teachers to develop their key IT skills. This project aims to make computers a regular part of lessons for the pupils by developing the teachers’ confidence when teaching with them and to enable the staff to use computers confidently for administration. This project will be progressed by a second team of UWE Bristol student volunteers in August.

Project Zulu has also recently expanded its work to include a township Special Educational Needs school which will host four volunteers for the first time in August. Two Nursing students will be paired with two Primary Education students to combine their skills and support the work of the local teachers. With their newly acquired knowledge and experience, this combined team will be sharing ideas and supporting individual classes containing pupils with a range learning difficulties and educational needs.