Transforming South Africa one girl at a time through education is what Molo Mhlaba aims to achieve.
Molo Mhlaba is a non-profit school that started in 2018 and offers a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts/design and maths) based curriculum.
Rethabile Mashale Sonibare, director of Molo Mhlaba, believes that girls, particularly girls living in townships, have become an endangered species. Providing alternatives for parents that are not necessarily well off, but have aspirations for their daughters to go to single-sex schools, is what they aim to help with – and is the school's target market.
“We have 114 girls from Grade RR to Grade 4, and the idea is that we would grow each year by grade. Our big audacious goal is to have 10 schools in 10 years, and we are currently fundraising to buy our second campus in Montclair in Mitchells Plain," said Sonibare.
"We do this through an extended school day. [The] girls arrive at school at 7.30am and get breakfast and they're at school until 4pm, and part of the extended school day allows us to keep the girls at school for much longer, ensuring their safety, but also ensuring that we can offer an enriched curriculum that includes ballet, that includes rhythmic gymnastics, includes yoga, that includes sports and music, robotics, e-learning.
"[One] of our more urgent needs at the moment is really trying to get a school building that is fit for purpose for our organisation and ensuring that our current location or girls have safe passage through scholar transport,” said Sonibare.
The school has been around for five years and aspires to turn out girls who will one day become leaders in society and flourish.
“Our school works on a first-come, first-serve basis for admissions for all the girls. We are a fee-paying school, so parents are expected to pay anything between R500 and R700 for the girls to be at the school. We are really targeting aspirational middle-class parents, or parents with an income in Khayelitsha who are keen to support their girls to get a better education. One of the big challenges we face as an organisation is parents paying fees on an on-going basis,” she added
The school is primarily grant-funded and has recently gotten a subsidy from the Western Cape Education Department to cover some of its operational costs They supplement some costs through fundraising, through grants, individual donations, markets and small fundraising efforts at school.
Ayaamah Waqu, a Grade 4 pupil at the school who has been there for three years, said she enjoys that she gets to learn different things such as maths, natural science, technology and history.
“I also get to do different sports like netball and football,” she said.
Grade 1 teacher Bulelwa Tia Nhase said it was a great opportunity to be part of the progress of the school.
“I remember me growing up and I was in an all-girls school. My mother could only find a school a distance away from home and to find out Khayelitsha has an all-girls school was amazing. To be part of a phenomenon where girls are celebrated, girls are told they are beautiful and they are told they can be anything they want to be is great and amazing to me. I wake up and make a difference and this is always something I wanted in my life,” said Nhase.