Someone once said, nothing great was ever achieved from a comfort zone and this proved to be true when over 300 learners woke up early on cold winter mornings to attend IkamvaYouth’s 2015 Winter School.
The morning of 29th June was filled with excitement and anticipation when 320 learners and tutors from Makhaza and Nyanga branch journeyed to the University of the Western for their two week Winter School. An entourage of 6 buses arrived at 08:30 and the Winter School kicked off with an opening and welcoming, which was done by Busiswa Dayimani and Nokukhanya Mchunu, Makhaza and Nyanga Branch Coordinators.
The lecture hall was filled to capacity by energetic bright sparks who were ready to take on their academics and to channel all the energies in the room, the learners broke into song to officially start the day. The excitement generated, inspired some talented learners to perform some acts and Aaron Mzayiya, a grade 11 learner, performed a poem for the crowd, while another group of grade 10 learners sang their hearts out for the audience. The highlight of the morning, was being joined by Neptal Khoza from Capitec (Marketing and Corporate Affairs) as our guest speaker. He delivered a talk about the importance of having a vision for your life and the significance of having people that share the same vision in your life. These are a few words from the speech given by Neptal, “Having a vision alone is not enough, what you need to do is work on a plan, a framework, of what it is that you need to do in order to achieve that. That will include the time that you need to put into studying, the time you need to attend programmes such as IkamvaYouth, the time that you need to get as much information from various sources that will help you become what you want to be.”
The first week was filled with intensive tutoring, the days began with an assembly at 08:30, where the timetable for the day was shared and tutoring commenced from 9am to 4pm. On each day tutors were given flexibility in terms of changing the timetable to accommodate the demand from the learners. In every room you spot serious faces, confused faces, determined faces and ones so engaged in the learning process.
During the lunch hour every day the tutors and staff assembled for a feedback session, which allowed the identification of problem areas that needed attention for the smooth rolling out of the programme for the remaining days. In this way the impact made was greater as focus was shifted to the subjects that learners required maximum support in.
The second week kicked off amazingly, with most matric learners joining in the fun at UWC. The timetable changed slightly as workshops were included in the afternoon schedule. Many of the learners were filled with excitement and were in awe by some of the interesting facts shared about social media, leopards and financial skills amongst many. We would like to thank Capitec for hosting a financial skills workshop with our grade 11 learners. The Cape leopard Trust, Mxit Reach, R-Labs, Robotics, Sunstep and many other individuals who shared their insight in their various areas of expertise with our eager learners.
Last but not least a huge thank you to our tutors who were incredible in the management of learners and tutoring sessions, their dedication to the mission and goal is recommendable.
(Tutors)
We admire the time, the effort, the dedication and passion that was shown by the learners, volunteers, guests, workshop facilitators, caterers and everyone who was involved to ensure that Winter School was a success.
What an exciting event to experience!
Lloyd Lungu