Giving back

Toddler City is an Early Childhood Development Centre based in Alexandra, Johannesburg.  Rene Kilner, the CEO of Trusted Utilities has been working with them since 2015. Not only are ECD’s like Toddler City heavily reliant on CSI funding to survive but 65% of children growing up in townships do not attend Early Childhood Development Centres.  This has a massive impact on educational outcomes in later years. Our aim is to assist Toddler City in becoming a BrainBooster learning centre. Approximately 65% of children living in South African townships are looked after by family members who do not have the means or the opportunity to attend ECD centres. Toddler City, as a learning centre, can lend resources to the caregivers at a nominal fee, and continue to update their resources. This will not only benefit the community by allowing more people to access educational content, but it will benefit Toddler City by allowing them to be sustainable and not dependent on donations alone.

Other projects include the installation of new fridges in partnership with Pinsent Masons law firm as well as supplying the centre with ongoing food parcel donations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, working together with Rebecca Cunningham, a student at the time, who decided to, in lieu of any Xmas gifts, rather take the money and put it towards replacing the existing broken wooden jungle gym with tables and chairs, ground level balancing beams, a jungle gym and swings made from 2 tons of recycled plastic.