Riebeeck East Combined School

AMANZI’s food garden is producing! The AMANZI team now harvests fresh spinach twice a week for the school kitchen, providing learners with an important source of additional nutrition.

The garden was established in response to a need identified by RECS teachers, who report that many learners rely on the school nutrition program for their primary meals—and often their primary source of calories—for the day. With meal budgets sometimes as low as $0.12 per learner per day, every additional source of fresh, nutritious food makes a meaningful difference.

For the past five years, South Africa has struggled with load-shedding—electrical outages that have, at times, left communities in the Eastern Cape without power for up to 12 hours a day.

In 2026, AMANZI installed a solar power system at RECS to provide reliable energy for the pumps serving the school’s 75,000-liter tank farm, its three-stage water filtration system, and UV water purification. The system also includes Wi-Fi capability, opening the door for RECS to incorporate digital curriculum and educational resources into the classroom.

Over the winter holidays, AMANZI launched a holiday meal program to help fill the gap for learners who rely on the school nutrition program during the school year.

The AMANZI team harvested spinach from our food garden and prepared traditional South African dishes—including umfino, pap, and chakalaka. The program extended the impact of the food garden beyond the classroom, helping ensure that vulnerable learners continue to have access to nourishing food even when school is not in session.

Over the summer holidays, the AMANZI team extended the garden’s reach beyond the school and into the community, delivering produce directly to RECS learners’ families.

To ensure the harvest was shared as equitably as possible, three rotating lists of households were created, allowing different families to receive fresh produce throughout the holiday period. This simple system helped AMANZI maximize the garden’s impact and ensure that more families could benefit from its harvest.

IIn July 2026, during the FIFA World Cup, AMANZI hosted its own World Cup between its two rural partner schools—Riebeeck East Combined School (RECS) and Shaw Park Combined School.

Unlike a tournament between primary and secondary schools with different grade structures, these two Combined Schools were perfectly matched in grade levels, creating a truly fair, competitive tournament. Students battled it out in netball and soccer matches, bringing the excitement of the World Cup home to their rural communities.

When the war with Iran began, diesel costs in South Africa rose sharply, creating an unexpected hardship for the Riebeeck East Combined School. The principal personally transports staff to the school (90 kms roundtrip) in a high-clearance SUV with safety features suited to the region’s rugged, often severely degraded rural roads. As fuel costs surged, operating the vehicle became unsustainable, leaving her facing the prospect of switching to a smaller, less suitable vehicle. AMANZI donors stepped in to cover the increased diesel costs, allowing her to continue transporting staff safely to and from school each day.

Riebeeck East Combined School has impressive rainwater harvesting potential. To capitalize upon this, the roofs were repaired, refinished and repainted, the asbestos gutters were safely removed and disposed of correctly, and new aluminum gutters were installed. With refurbished roofs and new gutters, RECS now has consistent water available and a healthier environment for learning.

A tank farm was installed to store 60,000L of water for use in the RECS kitchen, for drinking water and for hand washing. This is in addition to the 15,000L already secured for the school in 2022. A UV water purification system was also installed in the school kitchen to provide purified water throughout the day for learners and staff and for the school nutrition program. The project will also enable learners and teachers to take 5L of purified water home each school day.

Riebeeck East is a water scarce area. With this in mind, the RECS staff and School Governing Body chose to transition to waterless toilets. This transition has reduced the amount of water needed for daily operations at the school significantly, creating lasting water security for RECS learners and staff.

RECS has three brand new, carbon-neutral toilet blocks. Constructed using the biomass from invasive plant species, carbon that otherwise would be released into the atmosphere through burning or composting is instead sequestered in the concrete. This climate-smart product meets all South African national building regulations and is less expensive than traditional concrete.

In January 2022, Sawyer water filters were implemented in all classrooms at the Riebeeck East Combined School. These 0.1 micron absolute hollow fiber membrane filters ensure the removal of bacteria, protozoa, cysts and microplastics. With the implementation of these filters, 97 students now have access to clean drinking water at school.

In February 2022, as the COVID-19 pandemic persisted in the area, buckets for hand-washing were implemented in each classroom at the Riebeeck East Combined School. Learners are now able to wash their hands throughout the school day, and especially before eating and after visiting the toilet.

In February 2022, AMANZI - Water to Schools had a tank stand built and installed the 10,000L tank which had been donated to the school. In addition, a 2,500L tank which had been leaking was fixed, and moved to a location where it could be filled by a water tanker. This project increased the water storage capacity of the school from 2,500L to 15,000L.

In July 2022, a pump was installed to provide daily running water to the kitchen and classrooms at RECS. This pump will be integrated into the larger rainwater harvesting system once that is complete.