Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

#EDITORIAL

Building Kindergartens in South Africa with Philipp Suchy, Founder of NGO Kleenvrygeestes

17 august ‘22

3 minutes

Learn about building kindergartens in South Africa with Philipp Suchy, the founder of Kleenvrygeeste, an NGO working to provide children with kindergartens and increase their education opportunities. 

Words by Rebekah Smith

Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes

Kleenvrygeestes’ founding members, Philipp Suchy, Thomas Rolfes and Stefanie Grimmling created their Berlin-based non-governmental organization (NGO) with a mission to provide faster and more effective education that impacts communities more than individuals. They decided that it begins with the children, or kleine freigestes, which means “little free spirits” in German. Suchy and his partners realized they could begin to anchor global social values by educating the youth. Their first step? Build a kindergarten.


Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes


In March 2022, Suchy participated in our Staiy Podcast along with Staiy co-founder Adrian Leue, where he shared that there are between 3,500 and 4,000 children in South Africa who are of kindergarten age. However, only half of them attend kindergarten, so there are nearly 2,000 children in the country who do not receive education.

To tackle the problem, they plan to set up small schools in townships as a way to “provide security for families, siblings and children who ultimately need kindergarten.”

Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes


At the kindergartens, children will receive supervision and care from educators within their own communities. Unfortunately, there is a high rate of unemployment in South Africa, so the Kleenvrygeestes founders have created and rely on a framework in which jobs are filled locally.


Suchy says finding teachers and motivation is not the problem: “they just don’t have enough positions. We are there to make new job openings, and we are going to make sure there are no Europeans there.”



Family involvement is an elementary factor for the project’s success.

“We assume a maximum of 30 to 40 families per kindergarten,” Suchy notes.The founders are focusing on two of almost 25,000 townships in Africa. In February 2022, they started their first project in the South African settlement of Imizamo Yethu, a small township in the Hout Bay Valley area near Cape Town. They partnered with NGO Kindergarten Noluthando to renovate an existing school to provide a safe place and education for local children.



Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes


Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes

Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes

Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes


The Imizamo Yethu project and future kindergartens, which are currently underway, are currently funded by donations.


“At the end of the day, it all comes from donations, but we want to eventually fund through merch,” Suchy shares.

In South African townships, clothing is glorified. Regarding sustainability, Suchy describes the people as paying close attention to how they use clothing.


“They don’t burn clothing like they do here in Europe or America [...] since they don’t have any disposal,” he tells Adrian.

Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes


Since they value cool, popular brands, Suchy aspires to start a brand with stylish people in South Africa to promote their influence and start a factory. This will help foster local jobs, further sustainability in the area and fund Kleenvrygeestes’ educational endeavors.


Suchy believes Africa is the next up-and-coming continent, and that the countries can do well to produce good and sustainable brands and education.



Beyond education, sustainability is at the center of Kleenvrygeestes’ kindergarten project. They want to approach building in a more sustainable way which makes use of non-biodegradable items, namely shipping containers.

“We don’t want to build houses because in the townships it’s mostly huts. So, we are going with shipping containers arranged in a square where in the middle there is a playing area with containers for classrooms, offices and a kitchen with planter beds that will fit into the surrounding area wall,” Suchy says.



Meet Kleenvrygeestes, an NGO dedicated to building kindergartens for South African communities in need.

Image source: @kleenvrygeestes


Kleenvrygeestes also hopes to work together with the Early Childhood Development Forum in communities to develop plans which strengthen the skills of local workers. The founders hope to train, integrate and promote local workers into the kindergarten project. By training local residents to meet job qualifications, they can increase local careers in the fields of education and childcare.


The NGO offers internships for the youth of Imizamo Yethu as well, which provide small qualified degrees and help increase interest in educational occupations.


Kleenvrygeestes’ mission is simple: “Let us all be kleenvrygeestes together to be able to change what matters - a healthy, safe and grounded free spirit of a child.” Their overall goal is to support NGOs in other countries to provide education for everyone, because education is key.



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