JobPost : Symphonia for South Africa - Operations Manager

Symphonia for South Africa is looking for someone experienced at social change to be our Operations Manager – to take responsibility for programme delivery and organisational management.  This is a unique opportunity to make a real contribution to education in South Africa. 

Partnerships for Possibility is a ground breaking project that is already impacting 40000 children after only 2 years. We are currently working with 90 principals. The potential of this position is to be a part of taking this work to the next level and making a difference for 2000 schools in the next 10 years.

This person would be able to lead a team and implement structures and processes for more effective working; be comfortable with financial management; have experience at planning and managing a virtual organisation.  The Operational Manager promotes and organises a shared understanding of the objectives, detailed plans, desired outcomes, tasks, roles and responsibilities, day to day activities and monitors progress of the project towards the vision.

• National programme coordination - manages launch plan and all administration in order to inform decision making and planning at national level; Implements systems and dashboards and manages the planning and roll-out of the programmes from a business perspective. Is the custodian of the project plan and action log. 
• Finance – Facilitate budget vs. actual expenditure, cash flow projections, provides oversight regarding the bookkeeper’s preparation of trail balances and liaises with auditor for annual audit. Oversee payments, salaries etc.  Manages the finance team and works with the CFO.
• HR – Contracting; performance reviews; capacity planning for programme roll-out and operational events
• Monitoring and Evaluation – ensures that M&E processes are used and integrated into the organisation.
• Legal and compliance – Manage NPO compliance, auditor processes and any other compliance issues that are critical to and NPO and its funding

Symphonia for South Africa needs someone who:

Has a relevant tertiary education qualification, preferably finance related or with significant financial experience; experience in project management; able to work comfortably and effectively in a virtual environment; has high EQ and is able to deal with ambiguity and complexity;   able to stay calm when things get busy and to hold clear boundaries;   Is organised and efficient;  Is capable using computers and technologies that enable virtual working; has a “can do” attitude and believes that things are possible and can be worked out; has a good track record of volunteering.

R 360 000 P/A for a full time position. The position is based in Cape Town. 

Please submit your CV and a cover letter to mignon@symphonia.net .  Candidates who do not hear back from Symphonia South Africa should consider their application unsuccessful.

2013 & Quality Education

2013 & Quality Education

As we all know education is the foundation of any nation.  It is a necessity for all.  This is simply because an individual that is not educated cannot be active in society.  People grow with a better understanding of their immediate environment.  Education creates awareness as it regenerates the way of thinking of an individual.  He/She then understands what is needed in order to enhance good living.

This is because education is the life-wire of any meaningful project in society. If the  majority is poor and education is not free it becomes the preserve of the wealthy. This by implication means that over 90% of the citizens will remain uneducated and illiterate.

When the word 'education’ is mentioned to the common man, he thinks of schools. This is a formalistic and lop-sided view of education. Education is more than just schools. Experts agree that education involves transmission of knowledge, values, beliefs and skills.

2013 is upon us and at QE4SA, we are ready and excited to see the existing 84 schools become 850 schools by the end of 2013. To see our South African children become literate, educated and formed in there unique character and taking there rightful position in the community.

This is a call for all South Africans to activitely get involved in changing the lives of the children who are our future, together we can make a difference. 

Contact  us at richard@symphonia.net

Become a Catalyst for Change with #QE4SA

In 2011 Quality Education for South Africa began it's initiative by focusing on making the School the Centre of the Community. By concentrating efforts on the schools who were identified to be under-resourced according to the Education Department, the schools with minimal infrastructure and very little community involvement.

The Partners for Possibility program is about partnering business leaders with principals from these local schools. This process has been effectively implemented within 84 schools in 2012, with this number poised to double in the first half of 2013.

The Catalysts for Change program was created when we realized that not everyone sees themselves as a business leader, or has the available time to commit on a weekly basis. We needed to make volunteering accessible to the normal person without the hassles of trying to find a credible project that would appreciate their time. 

Catalysts for Change offers those wishing to give of their time, an effective vehicle to use their gifts and strengths or money. Potential Catalysts apply to join the program and list the skills they feel that would be most effective in assisting the Quality Education for SA program.

These people 'we call them active citizens' are then placed in our database and when either Quality Education or the Partners at the schools need a specific skill these volunteers are then mobilized.

To date we have had many people volunteering their services : Engineers, Doctors, Entrepreneurs, Nurses, Mathematics Experts, IT Trainers, Public Relations Professionals, Management Consultants, Photographers, Social Media Gurus, Web Design Specialists, Advertising Agencies, Leadership Development Experts and even Teachers from government and private schools.

We can effectively use any skill and this program takes the hassle out of trying to find an organization where you skills and resources would be appreciated. Through our network of many organizations across the country, being a Catalyst for Change at QE4SA will certainly provide the satisfaction of knowing that you are being an active citizen in South Africa and they you are actively contributing to the vision of Quality Education for all children in South Africa by 2022.

For more information please contact Richard Simmonds who is the National Catalyst Collaborator on richard@symphonia.net 

Maths a NATIONAL CRISIS

A NATIONAL crisis. That’s how Professor Werner Olivier has described the  dismissal mathematics score revealed in the annual national assessment (ANA) this week.

You cannot have a normal society in an abnormal school system and we’re seeing the symptoms of that… It’s very clear something is horribly wrong.  At grade 10 level where you see the size of the percentage of learners not knowing the differences between multiplying and addition in some cases…It’s really a critical phase, the senior phase.

The provincial marks for maths ranged between a staggering 9 & 17 percent.  These results explain to a very large extent among many other reasons why there is such a high failure and drop-out rates at Grades 10 & 11.

The ANA (Annual National Assessment) says that they are working on solving the problem by focusing on the lower grades, which in time will work through to all grades.

Given our generation “Z” and their expectations, where they have huge expectations, where they have huge interest in blended digital diet whether it’s for social interaction or education that is what we’re trying to respond to. ‘To build a bridge between them and educators’ Olivier said

My question: Is this the solution, isn’t the solution quality education for all in all areas and all ages? Hasn’t the time come for us to support our children, by standing together as parents and active citizens instead of each one trying to change the world on their own.

We need to understand that being individual will not help, but each one of us with our unique skills as part of a group can contribute to making a change in Education

Our Part in Education

In our world with its immense diversity of cultures, there are so many varied forms of growing up, The way to which children grow up and are educated also depends on the economic life situation in which they live, which gender they belong to: who their parents are, what peer group they belong to, the region they live in, whether they are migrants or not; 

Many other dimensions determining and influencing children’s lives could be listed, my question is the following: Are we allowing all these dimensions to influence our decision on who and who can and may not have a quality education, or are we part of the small but growing group who says no matter who, no matter where, each CHILD has the RIGHT to an education.  We allow ourselves to be influenced by the majorities criteria and that is absolutely sickening!!!

From the perspective of children’s rights, three aspects of education can be differentiated.

1.       The  right to education

2.       Rights within education
3.       Rights through education.

* The right to education has to do with the question how far and what quality education is made possible for children.

* Rights withing education refer to the question regarding the context in which education is transmitted and how the children’s rights become effective within the education process.

* The rights through education refer to the matter as how education enables children to exercise their rights and to act as competent citizens.

On the 10th December, four intrepid bikers (Gerhard, Oscar and Rosca De Waal, and Peter Pretorius) will be departing Cape Town for Uganda (Kampala) on a long-haul ride in support of Quality Education in South Africa, to make quality education possible

 We at QE4SA  salute you and thankyou for this tremendous initiative you’ve taken. Thankyou for this great example.

SA2Uganda

On the 10th December, four intrepid bikers (Gerhard, Oscar and Rosca De Waal, and Peter Pretorius) will be departing Cape Town for Uganda (Kampala) on a long-haul ride in support of Quality Education in South Africa.

Dubbed 'SA2UGANDA', the trek will raise money for QE4SA (Quality Education for South Africa), an initiative of Symphonia for South Africa, and highlight the contribution the organisation is making to education through its School @ the Centre of Community (S@CC) programme.

The group will be traveling from Cape Town, South Africa to Uganda and back. They will visit nine countries (RSA, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Lesotho) and cover a total of about 15,000 km over a period of six weeks.

Show your support for this fundraising effort by donating, sharing our story or becoming an active citizen in your local school.

http://www.qe4sa.org/index.php/sa2uganda

By putting the School @ the Centre of Community, QE4SA aims to mobilise every South African to be actively involved in dealing with the education crisis facing our country. Quality education for every child in South Africa can be achieved by:

• Igniting active citizenship and encouraging every South African to make a difference at a local school;
• Creating opportunities for principals and other community leaders to collaborate in Partnerships for Possibility;
• Capacitating principals to lead positive change in their schools through development coaching and support.

Symphonia's Partnerships for Possibility (PfPs) programme is a process designed to support principals in their roles as community leaders, and a key element of Symphonia's S@CC initiative.

Imagine a future in which OUR children benefit from the freedom achieved through quality education.

What an amazing opportunity and organisation to get involved with.

QE4SA the future of EDUCATION!

Vision: Quality Education for all children in South Africa by 2022.

Mission:  To mobilise and develop business and school leadership to achieve improved education outcomes in under-resourced schools.  We want to improve outcomes by promoting change in the systems and cultures in and around 20,000 under performing schools in South Africa by 2022. 

“Children” and “Education” – these two terms are suggestive of an elementary condition of human existence, and each child deserves the right to this.  The human being can only become human by education, if children are deprived of or only insufficiently  provided with education, they can barely develop and frequently not even survive.  But at the very least, essential opportunities of life are withheld from them. Thus children ought not to be seen merely as holders of rights, but also as ‘social subjects”, as human beings with specific, subjective properties that, in part, differ from those of adults, but which also – depending on age and development possibilities – may be action-competent players.

There is one basic requirement for any cognitive, emotional, and social education of all children – physical well being.

This is where QE4SA comes in, to make sure that each child gets an equal right to  Education to improve there lives and to have a chance to become the best they can be…..

You have the opportunity now to get involved as a partner or part of a circle of partnerships, and to change the lives of our children.  For more information visit – www.qe4sa.org or contact OE4SA Office +27 21 913 3507, Richard Simmonds  +27 82 413 1604, richard@symphonia.net.