2021 WESSA Annual Review

EDUCATION CENTRES

#WOW and WESSA Feed were a game-changer for the unit and resulted in the approval of three funded projects worth R2 600 000 over 3 years.

The last 15 months have probably been the most difficult for this unit, from its proud beginnings in the 1970s. External factors have effectively rendered the ability of the unit to deliver outdoor school camps near- impossible, and cut-off the unit’s core income stream. It has also exposed weaknesses within South Africa’s outdoor industry and impacted directly on WESSA’s four properties.

AN INDUSTRY ON ITS KNEES

Apart from the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic that effectively closed the global camp industry for 10 months, two separate tragedies at independent outdoor centres exposed a divided and ill-equipped outdoor education industry that is not supported by the state and not governed by an independent and professional compliance association. This has meant that providers, such as WESSA, who implement high-standard compliance and OHS Protocols, have been exposed by blanket departmental decisions, by officials who don’t necessarily understand our unique offerings. After closing our centres in March 2020, and then dealing with both a long- term ban on school extra-mural offerings, and constant changes to rules around the adjusted risk levels in the country, the unit had to go through an unfortunate restructuring in June 2020. The remaining skeleton team were forced to continuously think outside the box to find new ways to deliver our curriculum-based support programmes. We knew that those teachers and students located around our centres would desperately need our offerings and support when schools reopened, and thus developed the ‘WESSA-ON-WHEELS’ (#WOW) Programmes to deliver curriculum support services and COVID-19 awareness programmes to schools in- situ. A NEW OPERATIONAL MODEL AND OFFERING

Click here for more information on WESSA-ON-WHEELS’ (#WOW) Programmes

Alongside the development of #WOW, it became clear that many school children would also need support in getting access to decent meals and nutrition education post the lockdown,

and so we developed the #WOW FEED Concept, focusing on Food Security and Environmental Education programmes . These two concepts were a game- changer for the unit and resulted in the approval of three funded projects worth R2 600 000 over 3 years.

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Annual Review 2020-2021

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