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Luke 4:18
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.
We believe every young person should have the opportunity to participate fully in learning and in life regardless of means or ability. Our aim is to help create a Bonnievale that has zero learning gaps, zero NEETs and zero youth unemployment by 2030. Our strategy is to intervene across four sectors in Bonnievale. We invest in the lives of young people by increasing access to skills-based education, supporting learner pathways from school to work, growing employment potential within our local economy, and sharing what we learn with others.
Meet the Team
Born and raised in Happy Valley, Bonnievale. He matriculated at Bonnievale High School in 2007 and obtained his electrical and electronic engineering degree from Stellenbosch University in 2012. The calling to serve Bonnievale ignited during his university years. After seven years in the electrical consulting industry, he joined Bonnievale 418 from 1 May 2020 in a full-time capacity.
Curren Kuhn
Programme Director
Born and raised in Bonnievale. Through later missionary work, she started teaching people to read and write and transitioned to working with young children in early education. In 2010 she joined the SA Congress for Early Childhood Development; she became provincial Head of ECD in 2014 and National Head in 2017.
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Augusta Brandt
After pursuing a career in law, Michiel went on to serve as a youth and community worker in the rural community of Calitzdorp in the Western Cape. It is here where he came to realise his passion for youth development, the need for rural upliftment in South Africa and the role he can play in the lives of young people.
Michiel De Villiers
Community Liason
Pathways Stream Lead
Dewald has been active in social development for more than a decade. He supported youth in growing self and gaining access to further education, training, and employment opportunities. With a great sense of gratitude for all the opportunities while growing up and a deep conviction that we all have a purpose in making the "New South Africa" a reality for all, Dewald has dedicated his life to see this beautiful nation rise together.
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Born and bred in Bonnievale, she spent 2 years after High School overseas as an Aupair. For the last 9 years she has been involved in the Early Childhood Development Sector, where she started as a teacher and became a manager of 3 ECD Centres in Bonnievale by 2020. After years of working with young children she decided to shift her focus to the young adults of our community, as that is where she feels she can make the most difference.
Born in Bonnievale and grew up in Creighton, Kwazulu-Natal. She returned to Bonnievale and matriculated at Bonnievale High School in 2016. She completed internships in HR and Patient Administration at the Western Cape Department of Health (Robertson Hospital). But, her heart sought more, so she obtained a degree in Psychological Counselling at the University of South Africa in 2020 in order to help her community in more practical ways.
Dewald Cillie
Employment Stream Lead
Sue-Allen Brandt
Education Co-ordinator
Riche Taylor
Programme Administrator
Rudi was born in Cape Town and grew up in the Overberg, where he matriculated at Overberg High in Caledon. He furthered his studies at ETA and obtained a Diploma in Sport Management. Rudi's family is originally from Bonnievale and thus he always felt a connection to Bonnievale. Rudi believes that anyone can achieve the dreams that they set out for themselves, because with vision comes structure and with structure comes purpose and what greater purpose than to build the Kingdom of God.
Ruduwhaan September
Work Readiness
Stefan is an attorney by qualification but a servant by heart. He believes that we should find a measure to love ourselves, and then to use that exact same measure to love others. Love, hope, family mentorship, education, and at the end employment and giving back. He was the head of a big study trust before joining the 418 team where it will be his core responsibility to take hands with other communities in the Western Cape to help them to build school of skills for their own communities. He is a husband, father of two, and lover of life, good coffee, squash, reading and hiking.
Stefan Pieterse
Karla merges her experience from the results-oriented petrochemical industry and the people-focused church environment to contribute
to head-heart solutions for Bonnievale. She is passionate about enabling the hopeless to achieve what was thought to be impossible through mentorship, planning and
goal setting.Karla looks forward to developing sustainable action plans for the Bonnievale community through the Bonnievale 418 initiative.
Karla Burger
Sharing Operational Manager
EPWP Project Manager
What We Do
Education is a key instrument in human capital development (Stats SA, 2020). The more educated people are, the more likely their chances are for employment and jobs with good working conditions (Stats SA, 2020). The organisation supports pathways to gainful employment for youth in Bonnievale through initiatives at pre-school, primary school, high school, and after-school levels.
Bonnievale 418's overarching goal is to achieve zero youth unemployment in the community of Bonnievale by 2030. The most effective way to achieve this goal is to reduce the number of NEETs (youth between 15 and 24 years not employed, in education, nor training). Reducing the number of NEETs implies that youths of Bonnievale would follow pathways from education or training to gainful employment. This should have a multiplier effect on household income and the local economy whilst reducing socio-economic challenges associated with youth unemployment.
Current Projects
YearBeyond Programme is a partnership between the Western Cape Government (WCG) together with the Community Chest of the Western Cape and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.
The aim of this program is to provide 18–25-year-old young adults a valuable work experience and by ensuring a pathway for these adults to further their studies. YearBeyond is a ten-month program. It aims to encourage a sense of volunteerism amongst these young individuals. A further aim of the program is to provide additional literacy and numeracy support in areas where challenges arise. Additionally, a young adult is being developed and supported with his/her next step towards choosing a career path.
@HomeLearning is a community-based programme and is a collaboration between Western Cape Government Departments, schools, and NGO’s. This programme was piloted in the November 2020 to
March 2021 period and is now implemented in our schools (Bonnievale, Wakkerstroom West, Maraisdal
and Wellville primary schools) in Bonnievale. Bonnievale 418 as an Implementing Partner (IP) has recruited, trained, and is now managing 17 “@Home YeBoneers”.
The mentor appointed encourages engagement between the IP and various community stakeholders, for example schools, district managers, departments of the WCG, such as Department of Social Development and SAPS to promote safeguarding of our children.The goal of the programme is to promote the value of education for these communities. This is achieved by supporting and connecting them with learning through play-based educational activities and creating learning support systems in their homes and communities. The schools refer learners who need homework support and those who are at risk of dropping out. As mentioned, this programme is community-based and therefor interaction with the community occurs in the afternoon, where the YeBoneer promotes learning through play within the community.
Caregiver workshops are provided to caregivers/parents as to how they can assist their child with homework or activities. Every Friday a Future Fit Friday (FFF) is held for the group of YeBoneers to give feedback to their mentor. During these sessions personal development training is provided to help them address issues dealt with the past week.
Work For A Living (W4AL) is an international NGO that train facilitators to present and establish Work Readiness courses as well as Skills courses in their towns, cities, and countries to equip people to find jobs, excel in their workplace, start local businesses in their communities and place spirit-filled people in the workplace who understands that working to a standard of excellence you as the employee will be looked after, will be paid well, and promoted in time.
The course is a 13 Day course where we deal with:
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Job Readiness (Interviews, Values and Work Ethics),
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Financial Literacy (How to budget, saving and investing in one’s future)
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Professionalism and deal into depth on topics such as Worldview, Truth & Words
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Get people jobs, start their businesses with the resources that they have available and get people discipled for the Kingdom to thrive.
At the end of the course the “students” as we call them graduates with either a certificate of completion, 2E certificate, 3E certificate (meaning the student was excellent, excellent communicator and employable) or a 4E meaning the student was exceptional. The 3E and 4E students go on a national database for work placements that may open and gets notified if opportunities arise, supplying businesses, employers with excellent owner-minded employees.
Wolkskool: The goal of the Solidarity School Support Center (SOS) is to make every school in our country where teaching in Afrikaans is offered, to provide world-class quality, keeping abreast of the latest research and international best practices. Schools are increasingly under greater pressure to deliver sustainably good results with limited resources. The challenge is to improve education affordably with less work pressure for teachers.
Wolkskool offers schools the opportunity to decide how they want to use the system. There is already more than 10,000 video lessons, worksheets, and online assessments which teachers can make use of. All content is compiled by master teachers and complies with National Curriculum requirements (CAPS) and quality guidelines of Umalusi. Wolkskool’s content follows the annual teaching plans (ATPs), as prescribed.
Bonnievale Primary being one of the site’s where Wolkskool was implemented, now boasts of how this implementation has allowed the school to now be fully interactive. (www.wolkskool.co.za)
Teach the Nation works with primary and high schools as a Teacher Recruitment and Professional Development partner. They professionally develop all teachers at partner schools in training courses such as planning and vision, classroom culture and checks for understanding. Teachers receive dedicated coaching and mentoring as part of their Professional Development Plan.
In Bonnievale 9 teachers are currently taking part in the program.
