Viljoenskroon, Free State 27 July 2018 –Volkswagen Group South Africa’s (VWSA), Director for Corporate and Government Affairs, Nonkqubela Maliza handed over four Polos to the Edutak Early Childhood Development Centre, Tshepang Early Childhood Development Centre, Sithuthukile Trust and Ntataise Trust who are part of the Centre for Early Childhood Development’s network.

The four vehicles form part of ten Polos that VWSA made available in 2018 to support the improvement of early childhood development in the country. The vehicles will be used in six provinces namely Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and Free State.

The vehicles will assist ECD practitioners to reach out to over 30 000 children from poor backgrounds each year to receive quality early education and care.This is part of a VWSA’s corporate social investment initiative that is implemented in partnership with the National Department of Social Development, the Centre for Early Childhood Development (CECD) and the Ntataise Trust.

“The partnership with CECD and Ntataise Trust started 10 years ago when Volkswagen committed funds and 10 Citi Golfs towards training of practitioners, development of early childhood material and improvement of ECD centres in rural areas,” said Nonkqubela Maliza.

The vehicles are specifically used to reach out to early childhood centres in historically disadvantaged areas to provide teacher training, learning material and other support to these centres. These organisations are committed to providing access to quality early childhood development by developing and disseminating training resources, providing practitioner training , support, advice and programmes that enhance individual and organisational capacity in the previously disadvantaged and rural communities.

“This handover reinforces Volkswagen SA’s commitment to providing access of quality early childhood development to South Africa’s most vulnerable children. It also reinforces our commitment to ensuring that children are functionally literate by the age of ten,” said Thomas Schaefer, Chairman and Managing Director, Volkswagen Group South Africa.

“Early childhood education and intervention is critical as it is between birth and seven years that children acquire the basic language skills, numeracy skills and love for life-long learning. Our initiative ensures that the benefiting children have a chance to grow with the necessary skills to perform better at formal school level and beyond, ” added Schaefer