So we wanted to do to these cooking classes with the Ikamva Youth students in Nyanga. We had a few things to contemplate before we got started.
Our background as students from Copenhagen is in global nutrition and health. The question we posed ourselves was: How do you teach about health and nutrition when you come from different cultures and different realities?
Health, what is considered healthy and what the health needs of different people are, is certainly determined by different contexts. In other words, we knew that we couldn’t waltz into Nyanga and tell students how to change their diets and dictate to them what ‘healthy’ is, since the term is so variable and there are other determinants such as household income which affect what people can afford to eat.
We therefore saw the cooking classes as an opportunity to explore and expose students to different cultures through food. In doing so we hoped to inspire students to broaden their awareness of food culture and ideas around health, simultaneously daring them to stay open minded and try things that seemed foreign to them.
In South Africa different types of foods and meals are associated with different groups of people. White people eat this, Black people eat that, Coloured people eat this and that, Indian people this and so on. By exposing students to different foods and cultural ideas we hoped to invite them to cross these cultural stereotypes and boundaries.
Many ideas. Is our line of thinking relevant? Should one expose students to foods and ingredients that they can’t buy in their immediate environment or can’t even afford?
We think ‘YES’. Exposure to the unfamiliar can assist us in becoming critical thinkers and developing empathy towards other cultures. Most importantly it also allows us to rethink and be critical of cultural stereotypes and fixed definitions of things. Overly idealistic? Perhaps 🙂
OK so we had an idea and an intention but how were we going to fund this baby? Jesper came up with the brilliant plan to do a fundraising charity event. A Yoga and Lunch charity event in Arderne Gardens, Claremont to be precise. After much planning and spreading the word, we pulled off the event together with the 16 Nyanga students.
The event took place on 17 March 2013 and we were overwhelmed by the support we received! Since we were teaching a yoga class, on the menu for the day was Indian food. We used ingredients such as asafetida (a spice) and ghee (clarified butter), which is at the heart of Indian cooking, in all the dishes me made. The food we prepared was inspired by an Indian woman, Sandhya, who has been making food for Western yoga students for many years in the south of India in Mysore, Karnataka.
The food was delicious and all the participants wanted the recipes and another homemade chapati to take home. The chapati ‘team‘ kicked butt and made those chapattis like pros – you guys rocked!
IMMENSE GRATITUDE
In the end we raised R6000 to put towards our cooking classes and we are simply delighted and blown away by the support that we have received.
A huge thank you to all the amazing people who supported our Yoga & Lunch fundraising event! Thank you to IkamvaYouth for the opportunity to work with the students, and thank you to the incredible students.
Thank you all a thousand times over :))
Jesper and Sharline
We wanted to do to these cooking classes with the Ikamva Youth students in Nyanga and found that we had a few things to contemplate before we got started.
Our background as students from Copenhagen is in global nutrition and health. The question we posed ourselves was: How do you teach about health and nutrition when you come from different cultures and different realities?
Health, what is considered healthy and what the health needs of different people are, is certainly determined by different contexts. We knew that we could not waltz into Nyanga and tell students how to change their diets and dictate to them what ‘healthy’ is, since the term varies according toa number of determinants such as household income, which affect what people can afford to eat.
We therefore saw the cooking classes as an opportunity to explore and expose students to different cultures through food. In doing so we hoped to inspire students to broaden their awareness of food culture and ideas around health, while simultaneously encouraging them to stay open minded and try cuisines that seemed foreign to them.
In South Africa different types of foods and meals are associated with different groups of people, and certain foods are often considered the diets of some cultures and not others. By exposing students to different foods and cultural ideas we hoped to invite them to cross these cultural stereotypes and boundaries.
We had to work through many ideas at this stage, posing questions such as: Is our line of thinking relevant? Should we expose students to foods and ingredients that they can not buy in their immediate environment and ingredients that they can not afford?
Finally, we decided that it was worthwhile. Exposure to the unfamiliar can assist us in becoming critical thinkers and developing empathy towards other cultures. Most importantly it also allows us to rethink and be critical of cultural stereotypes and fixed definitions of things.
The next big question on our figurative plates was how we were going to fund this exercise. Jesper came up with the brilliant plan to do a fundraising charity event. A Yoga and Lunch charity event in Arderne Gardens, Claremont to be precise. After much planning and spreading the word, we were all set to host the event with the 16 Nyanga students.
The event took place on 17 March 2013 and we were overwhelmed by the support we received! Since we were teaching a yoga class, on the menu for the day was Indian food. We used ingredients such as asafetida (a spice) and ghee (clarified butter), which is at the heart of Indian cooking, in all the dishes me made. The food we prepared was inspired by an Indian woman, Sandhya, who has been making food for Western yoga students for many years in the south of India in Mysore, Karnataka.
The food was delicious and all the participants wanted the recipes and another homemade chapati to take home. The chapati ‘team‘ outdid themselves everyone asked for a second helping of chapati.
IMMENSE GRATITUDE
In the end we raised R6000 to put towards our cooking classes and we are overly delighted and blown away by the support that we have received.
A huge thank you to all the amazing people who supported our Yoga & Lunch fundraising event! Thank you to IkamvaYouth for the opportunity to work with the students, and thank you to the incredible students.
Thank you all a thousand times over :))
Jesper and Sharline
This last weekend Nyanganites got together for a highly successful Strategic Planning Weekend, SPW. Learners, volunteers and staff put their heads together and mapped out the year plan for 2013.
Nyanga learners showed that they are youngsters with a vision for their branch and are more than capable of taking their future into their own hands. Together, they outlined the challenges they currently face at the branch, and then came up with solutions to those challenges. The volunteers also brought their best to the session, guiding the learners and assisting them in expressing themselves and working on the different issues that came up during the weekend.
On the last day of the SPW, Nyanganites elected their 2013 branch committee, with some Nyanganites self-nominating and motivating why they wanted to be part of certain portfolios. It was highly gratifying to see the learners and volunteers confidently speaking out and outlining their own strong points.
Find the full report on the following link: spw_report_2013.pdf
The Nedbank My Future, My Career takes learners on behind-the-scenes tours of various career options and inspires learners to set new, informed tertiary study and career goal. All presentations were communicated and delivered via produced films and are screened at Ster- Kinekor cinemas nationwide.
17 March 2013, 27 Gauteng Ikamvanites attended the Career Day in Brooklyn, Pretoria. We left Midrand at 7:00 and we were back at 13:00. Screenings started at 8:30 and lasted for three hours. Various fields of study were screened at the cinema. Each broadcast consisted of discussions from professionals and academics from each featured field of study. Information presented included; guides to choosing the right subject for the right career, tertiary institution entrance requirement, bursary information and contact information.
The learners were able to appreciate the films broadcasted to them. Some of the feedback from them showed how informative the broadcasts were and the value that the Career Day imparts as a basis for decision making when they leave school. Here are some learners’ comments about the presentation.
“The presentation helped me to choose a second career choice” – Mpho (Ivory Park)
“I gained a lot of insight about subject choices and careers” – Cassandra (Ebony Park)
The day ended well, and it was a memorable occasion that I am sure will serve the Ikamvanites in good stead in terms of making informed decisions about their future.
This past weekend, Nyanga learners participated in an important workshop on fire awareness and safety. The workshop was conducted by the City of Cape Town’s fire and rescue services, represented by Ms Nombeko Kopele. The learners gathered in their usual tutoring venue at Zolani Centre and learnt interesting and important realities about fire.
The workshop is very relevant to the learners because fire is a real part of many of their lives as some have had their homes destroyed by it. The workshop covered useful practices to engage in when working with fire, including how to handle live flame, such as candles and some lamps; first aid when someone has been subjected to burns and the reporting protocol when there is a fire. The learners got to see pictures of fires in a variety of settings, such as veld and mountain fires, fires in informal settlements and other kinds of buildings, and visually learnt about the kind of devastation fire can cause.
Ms Kopele divided the learners into different groups and the grade 11 and 12 session doubled up as a career guidance workshop, as she spoke to them about fire fighting as a career path that is open to them post Matric. The learners had many questions about the subject choices they should make in order to work in this field and also the benefits of being a fire-fighter. Ms Kopele was up to the task and answered all the questions posed to her. At the end of the workshop were 90 Ikamvanites well informed about fire safety and protocols.
A very special thank you to the City of Cape Town for delivering this important workshop to the Nyanganites.
Lloyd Lungu