The Winterberg School Trust
Overview
The Winterberg School Trust is a non-profit organisation that has been serving the deep rural Winterberg community in the Eastern Cape for over 30 years.
At the heart of the Trust is our independent school, providing quality education for children from Pre-School to Grade 7.
Our Story
Prior to 1994 farm children walked for many kilometres to poorly resourced school rooms, with no running water or ablutions and with scarcely trained teachers, dotted all around the rural area.
In 1990, after discussions with the community and the Winterberg Farmer’s Association, the Winterberg School Trust was established – a vehicle through which the community could begin to address its educational challenges. It was decided that a high-quality central school needed to be built in the area where children could be transported to daily, in order to access high-quality education without breaking up the family unit.
With a seed grant from the Paul and Stella Lowenstein Trust, the Winterberg School Trust purchased 4ha of land on which the people of the Winterberg Community began to build this incredible community school. The amalgamation of several farm schools into a distinguished school of excellence, complete with well-established facilities for the broader community, has been made possible by generous donations from individual and corporate donors.
The Community School has developed substantially since its inception. The school has over the last 30 years been a hub not only for educating children, but for youth and women empowerment, adult education, community wellness and engagement and so much more. The school has maintained a focus on Early Childhood Development so as to help keep young children living at home and in education for as long as possible before they are required to travel further afield for continued schooling.
The Winterberg School Trust continues to find ways to grow and meet the evolving needs of the community, and we are incredibly proud of all we have achieved together over the past 30 years.