JumpStartSA

📚Youth Day 2026 🇿🇦
Fifty years after June 16, 1976, many young South Africans still face two significant challenges: unequal access to quality education and the reality of unemployment.

That's why our Educator Assistant programme exists. Our goal is threefold: Educate. Qualify. Employ.

Young people from the communities we serve gain a year of meaningful work experience supporting teachers in early-grade mathematics classrooms, while learners receive the extra support they need to build their strong foundations for the future.

One programme. Two challenges addressed.

This Youth Day, let's remember that supporting young people is not a once-a-year conversation. It's something we should all be doing every day, no matter how big or small.

Learn more: jumpstart.org.za/hopeishere/

The JumpStart Foundation's new short film is finally here! 👏🎥

So if you’ve been looking for a feel-good South African story, here’s ours.

We all know the numbers that can make us feel overwhelmed: 46% youth unemployment, inequality, and a mathematics crisis affecting the future of millions of our children.

But what if we told you there is a programme already helping to change those numbers?

The JumpStart Foundation’s foundational mathematics programme is currently reaching more than 26 000 learners across 487 classrooms in 5 provinces, while also employing young interns (called Educator Assistants) to assist in overcrowded classrooms.

Since inception, over 200 000 learners have benefited from our programme and over 220 youth are employed every year, and the numbers are increasing. These are the numbers that give us hope.

So, watch our new brand film for the full story, and learn more about our work: https://jumpstart.org.za/what-we-do/

A special update from our Eastern Cape work 🌟
Thanks to the invaluable support and contributions of the DG Murray Trust (DGMT), our school intervention programme in Mthatha went digital in September 2025. This funding has helped to equip five primary schools with fibre and tablets, so foundational learners can practise digital NumberSense activities on their tablets, exercising their technical skills and building critical thinking skills.

DGMT’s commitment to investing in young people and levelling the playing field extends to our youth programme too — in Mthatha we have 11 interns employed from the community. They not only support teachers and learners in mathematics, but also gain essential work experience.

Lastly, but very importantly, our Teacher Training, the Two Pathways programme, is expertly delivered in partnership with Kelello Collective. This is a blended development programme that includes face-to-face training as well as an EdTech component funded by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (OMT). Thanks to OMT’s support, teachers learn useful strategies that they can then develop over time with self-paced digital practise, improving their own sense of mathematics, so they can better teach the subject as a whole.

Thank you to both DGMT and OMT for investing in this work and creating real opportunities and meaningful change in the Eastern Cape.

Visit us: https://jumpstart.org.za/

Thanks to Expresso Morning Show and Graeme Richards for hosting Lufuno Muthubi - Mthethwa - our Executive Director - last week

We love spreading the word about how important foundational mathematics with NumberSense and MathsSense Mathematics Programmes is for a child’s solid future.

But it was also great to chat about our other programmes, namely our teacher training and youth employment which both underpin the learner intervention we do.

If you didn’t watch the interview live, watch it now, part of our upcoming short film was played 🤩

Learn more about us at https://jumpstart.org.za/what-we-do/