Serving God by serving humanity
What makes the project unique is that Southern African maths and science teachers decide on the workshop agendas based on their priority needs.
TEACHERS Across Borders Southern Africa, is a professional development project started in 2001 by former Port Shepstone mayor Pauline Duncan and Yunus Peer and is now in its 17th year.
TABSA is a 100 percent volunteer organisation based in Honolulu, Hawaii, where Yunus teaches at Punahou School, alma mater of outgoing US President Barack Obama.
By its nature, TABSA is an annual event in which Yunus and his colleagues in Hawaii prepare to work in Southern Africa during their summer school holidays in June and July.
What makes the project unique is that Southern African maths and science teachers decide on the workshop agendas based on their priority needs.
Each year Yunus assembles a team of experienced maths and science teachers in the USA and they prepare a curriculum of best teaching practices and innovative techniques to teach CAPS required topics that are most challenging, especially for teachers from rural schools.
TABSA lessons are designed to use readily available, inexpensive materials to teach large classes in the absence of labs and equipment. After the workshops, TABSA provides all the lessons online as a free download to all teachers globally.
In 2016, TABSA conducted five week-long workshops for 610 teachers in Port Elizabeth, Nelspruit, and Swaziland.
The workshop in Mbabane, Swaziland (with 160 teachers) was sponsored by UNICEF as part of a national capacity building programme in Swaziland. TABSA became an official United Nations partner organisation in 2016.
Over a span of 16 years, more than 5 000 teachers from Southern Africa have attended TABSA workshops and the project has impacted more than 1.5 million pupils in rural schools.
Thanks is largely due to donations TABSA receives from communities in the US and in Southern Africa. The organisation has also set up computer labs in rural schools used by 4 000 students annually, and with local sponsor First Car Rental, TABSA manages a school uniform project and sanitary pad campaign for students from poverty stricken areas.
Ziphakamise CEO Reverend Lulu Bodla said “With TABSA’s help over the last five years, we have been able to provide school uniforms for more than 500 children in the deep rural areas. Additionally, TABSA supports the sanitary pad initiative, which impacts more than 60 schools and enables girls to attend school without missing a few days each month.”
Rev Bodla went on to say that TABSA is an example of giving that epitomises the best of Christianity and all religions “What better way to serve God than to serve humanity?”
Yunus’s wife Laurie Lee is an administrator at Iolani School in Honolulu, the alma mater of Dr Sun Yat-Sen, the man responsible for the overthrow of the last emperor and the founding of the first Republic of China in 1912. Yunus and Laurie have six children between them and operate TABSA after hours and during their school holidays.
For 2017, TABSA has been invited to conduct maths and science workshops in East London, Bloemfontein, and Lesotho. TABSA provides free maths and science materials for grades 6 to 12 on its website: www.tab-sa.org.
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