Mobility of the future: Students from Lethabong Secondary School in Soshanguve with their self-constructed robots. BMW supports the institution, which specializes in mathematics, technology and programming.
Image: Jörg Künstle/BMW
The BMW factory has existed in South Africa for 50 years. 1.6 million cars have been produced there so far. These days, people want to build more there than just cars.
So Pretty much the last thing on the children’s minds at Ntsha Peu Primary School in Soshanguve, Gauteng province, is the topic of sustainability. At their school in the middle of one of these South African townships, they get one meal a day, a sheltered environment to learn and the promise of a future without dire hardship if they do it diligently. And yet sustainability has struck a chord in this poor, dusty huge settlement.
165 solar modules on the school roof provide electricity; all that is needed is for the sun to shine. This is often the case in the region around the capital Pretoria. Without electricity the water pump doesn’t work, the lighting stays dark, without electricity there are no lessons, at least not with the computer. Although Ntsha Peu Primary School consists of buildings that look like barracks, it has 80-seat computer labs. Mary Phadi, the school principal, seems unable to believe it herself: “In this area! Incredible, is not it!?”
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