Our organisation was started in September 1987 by Mrs Baskind who lived on a farm called Goedhoop Estate near Delmas in Mpumalanga. The crèche was initiated because schools were far from the farm and children travelled long distances to attend school. At that time 27 farm preschools were affiliated to Siyathuthuka. The organisation worked supported 28 farm crèches from Leslie, Delmas, Kriel, Ogies, Rosedale, Eloff, Babsfontein and Devon.  

In 1993 Angelina (Mashilo) Phillips a preschool teacher joined as Fieldworker. She underwent various courses at Early Learning Resources Unit in Cape Town in order to assist practitioners in the underprivileged farm and peri urban communities around Delmas. In 1999 she took over as Manager. The project grew steadily over the years and now reaches 306 practitioners, 7718 children and 170 ecd centres.

In 2003 Siyathuthuka received its first accreditation from ETDP-SETA to offer recognised quality programmes for early childhood development practitioners. Our programmes are divided into three; 

·         Formal Training Programme for practitioners who want to per sue they career in the sector 

·         Community Development Programmes to upskill practitioners who are working with children with little knowledge and experience. 

·         Outreach Programmes to create access for children who are not with community ECD centres. We have 18 Non Centre Based Playgroups, and 14 care-workers (Family Community Motivators) who are visiting homes to stimulate young children. We target children from 0 – 5 years.  Older children (6 – 13 yrs) also visit our Toy Library in the afternoon and preschool in the morning.