Spesh is well and excited. She is still studying whilst running her small Early Development Centre (ECD).

Since the last time we met with Spesh, she seems to have made tremendous progress on the digitisation of operations at Gertie’s. The Department of Basic Education puts pressure on ECDs to digitise processes, but provides very little knowledge or human resources to do so. When meeting with Spesh, it felt that your team kick-started initiatives that are having an impact on her day-to-day operations. For instance, Spesh is now using the Google drive you developed and accesses it through her phone.

The financial management of Gertie’s, highlighted as one of the challenges by Spesh last year, is going much better as well. The process of recording payments by parents is standardised and straightforward.

However, Gertie’s remains in a fragile financial situation due to a decrease of the number of learners. Although, this may simply have to do with the bad economic situation, and possibly the fierce pricing competition between ECDs, Spesh takes some responsibility in this decrease explaining that Gertie’s could have done better to market her ECD. She is now switching back to Facebook rather than Instagram. Facebook remains the most popular social media platform in townships like Langa for her audience.

Occasionally, Gertie’s gets material support in the form of toys, stationary or clothes from external groups and retailers like “Boxer”. Spesh is confident being on track to identify and get longer term sponsors to the ECD.

The Brown-IE initiative has allowed Spesh to look further than her own challenges. Still in touch with the team on a regular basis, she is very thankful for this efficient and pragmatic support she is getting.