20 Mar 2022

South Korea has pledged to provide learners at Ambrose Academy with tablets.

This was said by South Korea ambassador to Botswana Mr Chull-joo Park while on a tour of Ambrose Academy recently.

Ambrose Academy located in Gaborone North, is a pioneering and leading school in the field of Special Education.

The academy offers a one stop shop for both mainstream developing children and those with special needs.

The academy also offers educational, therapeutic support and extracurricular activities. Expertise at the school cover areas such as speech delay, hearing loss, autism, down syndrome and developmental delays. 

Mr Park asked the school management to introduce any job training programmes for young people since they were among groups of people who had been hard hit by the effects of COVID-19.

Further, he said South Korea would provide for both children living with disabilities and those who were not, a small funding to afford them quality training that would place them well in the world of job market.

He said since his country did not have an office in Botswana they used Botswana Red Cross Society to help facilitate programmes at the school since it had a good network of missions, to reach out to people in need, the entire Botswana.

South Korea uses US$2 billion of its tax payer’s money annually, to assist the international world and US$500 million to assist African countries with charity works. Mr Park who is based in Pretoria, stated that a large share of the US$500 million went to the continent’s Northern part while the Southern received a small amount.

Meanwhile, one of the trustee of Ambrose Academy Trust, Mr Kgosietsile Mariri said they invited many foreigners to the school since they needed financial assistance.

Mr Mariri said the Korean Community learnt about the school and decided to sell it to their ambassador. Since it was his first time in Botswana, Mr Mariri believed the ambassador would have an opportunity to visit communities and learn more about the country.

He said the school had 50 learners in school but the numbers reduced to less than 30 after COVID-19 because parents could not afford school fees.

Mr Mariri was hopeful that the situation would improve since they were building more classrooms. Sebele Ward councilor, Mr Austin Abraham thanked the South Korean ambassador and the community of Korea in Botswana for the visit.

“I asked him to deliver on his promise to the school. Children with autism are so many in Botswana and if government can subsidise their school fees, they can get an education,” stated Mr Abraham.

Mr Abraham appealed to the ambassador to, on behalf of Gaborone councillors advocate for a relationship with the city of Seoul. ENDS