This centre is owned by Mrs Maureen Koitsiwe, and is situated on her property. It has a nice brick building currently in use as a playroom, and an insulated container used as a baby room. At present, the centre owns not one unbroken toy, but it does have a few puzzles and books.

The problem with just putting toys in centres is that the teachers themselves have never played with many of the toys. They are often unable to distinguish the functions of toys, or the age groups which the toys have been designed for. This leads to toys being piled willy-nilly into cardboard boxes and emptied out from a height – puzzle pieces, broken toy trucks and headless dolls then come tumbling out...

What we have found is that if we work with the teachers to create play areas, shelves and containers, the toys are stored properly and in ways that make them accessible to the children. We then show the teachers how to use the toys. Children are taught to pack away properly, and teachers take pride in keeping the playroom well-ordered and clean.

We are very busy here as we want this to be our "demonstration" school . We have to do a great deal of paving and painting, as well as a little grass planting and a little gardening soon. We also want to put a veranda roof over the baby room, to create a space where children can play in the shade or if it is raining.

The building work is being done by the father of one of the children at the centre. As far as we can, we try to involve local people to do work for us, in order to provide employment and also to get the community involved as much as possible. We have quite a few toys for this centre, and all the furniture ready for when the builders complete their work. We will always need more toys and books of course!

These photos were taken on the day the Flying Children Programme was introduced to the teachers and children. The children sat back and waited to be told what to do at first, but with a little prompting did art for ages – some enthusiastically drew pictures the whole morning.