LEAP Science and Math Schools
OUR CURRENT WORK
1. Sustainability In Action: In a series of Texas estuaries restorations specifically designed to test the ability to bring back the seagrass ecosystem with fisheries, animals and endangered species, food webs, seagrasses’ resilience stabilization of bottom sediments, and water clarity. The ecological balance between industrial development & ecology carried out by Texas seagrasses restoration, especially in industrial-damaged areas.
2. Gulf of Mexico Carbon Studies: This is a solution to partially solve Climate Change by taking carbon dioxide taken out of the air and storing it into marine sediment by seagrass and mangroves. We have just completed a study from Florida to Mexico of sequestered carbon showing massive seagrass losses over the last century in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico portion now contains about 174 Tg seagrass sediment carbon. Restored seagrass stores substantially more carbon than does natural seagrass. This means that conservation of seagrass should occur and large efforts to restore seagrasses where they have previously grown should occur to be a partial solution to Climate Change. Sponsored by Commission for Environmental Cooperation in North America, American Botanical Society, Kempner Foundation, Mitchell Foundation, Rockefeller Family Foundation.
3. Measuring Sequestered Carbon In Coastal Vegetation: (seagrasses, mangroves, marshes) Gulf of Mexico (Mexico and USA). Total estuaries extent and stock of carbon. Read More
4. Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief: We had scores of medical professionals come to assist thousands of victims through our pop-up clinics which treated a wide variety of problems including continuing work with hundreds of prosthetics devices in partnership with Wyoming Prosthetics and Rockefeller Family Foundation and The Government of Brazil.
5. The Future of the Western Hemisphere: The western hemisphere, the next fifty years, a report to the International Club of Rome and the governments of the 38 nations of the western hemisphere. These reports included both problems and solutions to key points of potential crisis for health, energy, food, water, population, environment, economics, legal, arts, language and culture, and governance. Read More
6. Oil Spill in the Gulf: The Gulf Oil Spill, Damage Analysis and Mitigation. Read More
7. Restoration of Seagrass in Southwestern Asia: Workshop in June 2018 for seagrasses with vital statistics and directives coming from this.
8. Restoration of Seagrass in North Africa: Workshop and help for artisanal Fishermen to learn and plan for Seagrass restoration to bolster and remediate fish stocks.
NEXT PROJECT
Restoration of Pollution-Killed seagrass in Texas Estuaries.
Estuaries in Texas have had initial areas restored with success and fisheries recolonization.
OUR INTERVENTION
LEAP aims to address the educational deficit in South Africa’s under-resourced communities through a community intervention model. Our educational intervention model has three main components:
LEAP schools have smaller classes (Grades 8-12) to encourage accountability and help build relationships. LEAP has an extended 9-hour school day offering a full curriculum of subjects. This extended school day is necessary to remedy primary school education deficits that our students are faced with when they enter LEAP in Grade 8. Extra academic support is given during Saturday classes and holiday programmes. We place heavy emphasis on English, Mathematics, and Science which increases the choices learners have when accessing tertiary education.
Emotional skills are as important for career success as good academic results. LEAP’s Life Orientation (LO) is a unique values – based personal development programme. It focuses on empowering young people to become role models, leaders, and agents of change in their communities. The LO programme increases student’s self-awareness as well as their capacity to reflect on their actions and make healthy life choices. It encourages the growth of personal resilience, integrity, open communication and confidence in any context.
LEAP acts as an enabling hub for a number of community development programmes. All learners and staff are required to work with social development organisations in their school’s community. In this way, learners become more conscious of social justice issues and learn about the importance of giving back. Many of our learners have gone on to become community leaders, starting and running non-profit and social enterprise initiatives.
OUR CURRENT WORK
1. Sustainability In Action: In a series of Texas estuaries restorations specifically designed to test the ability to bring back the seagrass ecosystem with fisheries, animals and endangered species, food webs, seagrasses’ resilience stabilization of bottom sediments, and water clarity. The ecological balance between industrial development & ecology carried out by Texas seagrasses restoration, especially in industrial-damaged areas.
2. Gulf of Mexico Carbon Studies: This is a solution to partially solve Climate Change by taking carbon dioxide taken out of the air and storing it into marine sediment by seagrass and mangroves. We have just completed a study from Florida to Mexico of sequestered carbon showing massive seagrass losses over the last century in the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico portion now contains about 174 Tg seagrass sediment carbon. Restored seagrass stores substantially more carbon than does natural seagrass. This means that conservation of seagrass should occur and large efforts to restore seagrasses where they have previously grown should occur to be a partial solution to Climate Change. Sponsored by Commission for Environmental Cooperation in North America, American Botanical Society, Kempner Foundation, Mitchell Foundation, Rockefeller Family Foundation.
3. Measuring Sequestered Carbon In Coastal Vegetation: (seagrasses, mangroves, marshes) Gulf of Mexico (Mexico and USA). Total estuaries extent and stock of carbon. Read More
4. Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief: We had scores of medical professionals come to assist thousands of victims through our pop-up clinics which treated a wide variety of problems including continuing work with hundreds of prosthetics devices in partnership with Wyoming Prosthetics and Rockefeller Family Foundation and The Government of Brazil.
5. The Future of the Western Hemisphere: The western hemisphere, the next fifty years, a report to the International Club of Rome and the governments of the 38 nations of the western hemisphere. These reports included both problems and solutions to key points of potential crisis for health, energy, food, water, population, environment, economics, legal, arts, language and culture, and governance. Read More
6. Oil Spill in the Gulf: The Gulf Oil Spill, Damage Analysis and Mitigation. Read More
7. Restoration of Seagrass in Southwestern Asia: Workshop in June 2018 for seagrasses with vital statistics and directives coming from this.
8. Restoration of Seagrass in North Africa: Workshop and help for artisanal Fishermen to learn and plan for Seagrass restoration to bolster and remediate fish stocks.
NEXT PROJECT
Restoration of Pollution-Killed seagrass in Texas Estuaries.
Estuaries in Texas have had initial areas restored with success and fisheries recolonization.
Image: LEAP Students.
Image: LEAP Students
All Students come from the lowest economic Strata in South Africa from the public schools. Students enter LEAP at Grade 8 with poor numeracy and literacy skills, with an average reading age of 8 years as opposed to 14 years. To deal with this academic deficit, LEAP Science and Maths Schools have extended schooling hours to 9 hours per day. Saturday classes and holiday programs are a part of the curriculum with extra lessons in Science and Math. The aim is to encourage students to achieve excellent results in these subjects and progress through each Grade. Currently 1600 students are provided with educational material to assist them to learn efficiently.
Unfortunately the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic has hit us hard in terms of ensuring the sustainability of the LEAP Schools working intentionally with youth at risk, normal schooling has changed and we as LEAP have had to adapt to the new virtual climate. During this period of uncertainty and isolation, more than ever we would appreciate your help and support. Our children are living in very crowded and poor conditions. While we are doing our best to support them we have specific needs that were accelerated by the current COVID-19 reality:
- 600 android mobile phones with data so that students can learn and do online assignments. The cost per android phone including data is $120
- Food Parcels to feed a family for a month is $32
- Preventative Masks is $2 per student
- Hand Sanitizers and Cleaning aids is $4
Why We Exist
Despite 25 years of democracy, South Africa is still lagging in the delivery of adequate education to children, especially in underprivileged communities. LEAP Science and Maths Schools responds to this challenge by contributing towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 42 of the United Nations, i.e. to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
The black South African population – which represents roughly 85% of South Africa’s total population – lags substantially behind all other racial groups in regard to the level of education, with one out of three black South Africans not going beyond Grade 11. It is no wonder, therefore, that black South Africans only represent 9% of the post-secondary students attaining tertiary qualifications – whereas the number reaches close to 40% for whites.
Equally concerning is the estimate by the South African’s Education Innovators that 80% of the Grade 9 pupils are achieving at a Grade 5 level in mathematics (and the backlog starts in Grades 1–3). By the end of Grade 4, a third of all pupils are still completely illiterate in any language, while more than half cannot read for meaning and interpretation.
Who We Are
The Langa Educational Assistance Programme (LEAP) was formed in 2004 and operates a network of six high schools supporting the development of critical life and academic skills in young people living in some of the poorest townships in South Africa.
Focusing on the development of the whole child, our learner-centred approach and strong emphasis on social-emotional learning belies the destructive assumption that quality education is not possible in under-resourced communities.
We believe that every child, despite their socio-economic status if given the appropriate love and support is able to become a responsible and productive citizen.
Our interventions are offered via LEAP’s programme of self-liberating learning which are implemented at our six schools in Langa, Philippi, Alexandra, Diepsloot, GaRankuwa and Jane Furse. Our consciousness education model has been designed to redress inequalities which are evident in today’s schooling system and strives for excellence at our schools. We aim to educate and empower students to be the best that they can be through an “Ubuntu” approach – I am because you are.
- Healing the dying oceans
- Alleviating systemic poverty
- Changing reactive thinking to proactive models
- Transforming laundry-list data to user-oriented information systems
- Inspiring behavioral change by bringing motivation into education
- Shifting rigid, outmoded thinking to out-of-the-box, innovative designs
- Focusing on problems with a systems approach
- Moving an illness-focused medical system into public health prevention and wellness
- Modeling, designing and training for disaster preparedness
- Measuring Coastal carbon sequestration
- Healing the dying oceans
- Alleviating systemic poverty
- Measuring Coastal Carbon sequestration
Image: Mamphela Ramphele with Nelson Mandela
“Nelson Mandela would have been the number one champion of Leap Science and Math Schools program today. The unique contribution of Leap schools is the self-liberation of young people from the inferiority complex that is part of the legacy of racist colonial and apartheid systems. That legacy is still with us to date. The Leap model has demonstrated that self-liberation from that legacy is possible. Today we are inviting you to walk the rest of the journey that Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom could not complete. We ask you to partner with Leap Schools to ensure that every young person in South Africa, and over time in the entire African Continent, is self-liberated and able to shape a future they can be proud – a future that honors Mandela’s legacy. Are you ready to walk with us?” – Mamphela Ramphele Patron in Chief, LEAP Science and Maths School