The Pandula Trust recently sponsored two month's school fees, to the value of N$8,000, towards a pupil attending the Stepping Stone Special Education School in Swakopmund. The pupil has Epilepsy, Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Intellectual Impairment and Visual Impairment. After his mothers passing in 2020, the family has ben struggling to make ends meet. Similarly, many of the children enrolled at Stepping Stone are in need of financial assistance. Pandula Trust members visited the centre recently to familiarise themselves with the centres activities and to hand-over the donation. Pandula is a small staff-run and funded angel-deeds charity that aims to touch peoples lives in a positive and uplifting manner.

Stepping Stone is an educational facility for children with special needs and aims to develop learners who struggle to meet developmental milestones so that they can progress to mainstream education. The centre also specialises in autism and special needs related to autism. It is the only registered private school in Namibia that provides specialised, tailor made education to these children. Part of their success has been the combination of using specialist approaches to teaching and a conducive school environment that helps to accelerate learning. Each child’s learning plan is tailor-made to support them, based on their individual challenges.

According Almarie Mostert, a Special Needs teacher at Steppings Stone, the centre grew in leaps and bounds. "Often we find that children who struggle in the formal school setting are seen as simply unruly or uncooperative, when actually these children need a different approach to learning. During 2020 we were concerned about the future of the school, but during lockdown people started approaching us to assist them with their children who could not learn or adapt in the formal school setting, much less with remote or online learning. We started as kindergarten, but quickly progressed to primary school and will soon expand to a high school."

"Most of our learners have autism or related neurological and/or communicational difficulties and very regularly also have high sensory needs. They have all been enrolled at other preschools/schools, but their needs were not met well enough for them to learn effectively. At Stepping Stone School we give individualised support for learning so that each child’s full potential can be reached. Any learner will struggle in a mainstream setting when their specific needs are not fully met. We want to support learners according to their needs, so that those who are able to, will be able to adapt in a mainstream setting," she added.

For more information about Stepping Stone visit their website or Facebook page.