Having begun in 2003 in Sinako High School in Khayelitsha, initiated by Joy Olivier and Makhosi Gogwana, IkamvaYouth now has 7 branches in 3 provinces across South Africa. Over these 9 years, we have touched the lives of thousands of learners, parents, teachers, tutors and staff.
#WhereAreTheyNow takes an indepth look at the lives of individuals whose lives have crossed with IkamvaYouth and the changes this brought about.
New faces join us every year and old faces make an appearance every now and then.
With this series of blogs and biographies, we introduce you to all those that believe we made a difference in their lives and those that return to be the difference. We also honour those who have helped IkamvaYouth grow and moved on to other pastures.
In our first interview, we take a look at the life of Buhlebakhe Ngongoma , a return tutor based at our Chesterville branch. He joined IY when it first begun in KZN in 2007 and is now preparing for his Board Exams while studying for his BCom Accounting at UKZN’s Pietermaritzburg Camp.
Take a look at the full biography here .
The hallway was buzzing and excitement filled the air as learners from Umlazi and Chesterville branches gathered outside Durban University of Technology’s ( DUT) passages of the library basements.
It was a mixture of old and new learners as well as old and new tutors all waiting in anticipation for the official start of Winter School. With the first half of the day dedicated to academic/tutoring activies and the latter to activities, fun and learning were definitely on the cards for the week.
This was the perfect opportunity to introduce our Reading Corner initiative, the brainchild of our Branch Assistant Cheryl Nzama. Having collected books from friends as well as a generous loan by the Umlazi AA Library ( where IY Umlazi is based ) we had a large box of books to spread amongst all learners from both branches. The aim of our book corner is not only to get learners interested in reading but also to enhance their English reading and writing skills.
Tuesday saw the arrival of the Answer Series books which IY learners over the years have used during Homework and Saturday Sessions as well as for preparation for exams. All this is possible through the kind sponsorship of The Answer , who provide these study guides for all our learners across the grades.
A lot of Grade 11 IY learners count Wednesday as their favourite day week 1. This is because Durban University of Technology‘s Chemistry lab ( through the assistance of senior Lecturer and Lab Assistant Mr Roy Nursagh donated half of the morning ( and some of their staff members ) towards doing various Chemistry practicals with learners – a great fete as most learners are in schools who are not equipped with Chemistry labs and only depend on their textbooks to study. Learners had the chance to do four different experiments as well as watch a presentation by Mr Roy for two other experiments.
The two branches went their separate ways on Thursday for Operation Clean Up, an initiative aimed at encouraging environmental awareness and offering the learners an opportunity to back to their environment . Early in the morning Chesterville learners met up at the Vuyani Nkosi Memorial Centre where IY Chesterville is based and cleaned up the Chesterville Hospice, the main road ( Mahlathi Road ) as well as the St Anthony’s Church’s Mission which houses old aged as well as abused women and children.
Through the assistance of Chesterville’s Area Based Management ( ABM ), Durban Solid Waste ( DSW ) donated plastics, gloves as well as an Environmental Bus and guest speaker for the event was Mr Njeba while Ethekwini Municipality’s Parks, Recreation and Culture donated tools used to clean up the yard. Both companies were also kind enough to sponsor 2 trucks and 4 municipal workers that picked up the litter collected by learners as well as the rubble from the mission.
Friday, learners were combined and then separated into 4 groups : Yellow, Green, Blue and Red which were The Peacemakers, Ingqungqulu, Blue Bullz and Umlilo respectively.
This was for our set to be annual event : Sports Day, an idea brought about by our Umlazi Branch Coordinator S’bonelo Cele.
Various games such as Soccer, Netball as well as 100m, 400m and 400m Relay races and indigenous games such as Hopscotch, Amagende, Sprite and uShumpu were played and saw The Peacemakers ( Yellow ) walk away as the official winners of the event having collected the most points. ABI were the proud sponsors of this event which they also dubbed their CSI Day. Read more about the day here.
Funding from major corporate companies is always welcomed by organizations such as ours, as it means we can continue serving the communities we work in, in the best way we can. It is however so humbling and indeed encouraging when the employees of that company demonstrate a genuine interest and willingness to participate actively in their company’s social investment initiatives. ABI, is such a company, as demonstrated in the past few weeks.
On the 28th of June, ABI hosted a media launch, formally opening the doors of the new branch in Umlazi, which began operations in April this year. We were invited as honored guests at the event, which was quite exciting as we got to meet with various members of the mangement team, and had an opportunity to learn a little more about this amazing company.
ABI’s involvement in our winter school cannot go unnoticed. The day after the launch, ABI employees joined learners for their sports day, eagerly participating in all the events and getting to know the learners. ABI also got involved in our careers day, aimed at introducing learners to various career possibilities. The CSI team have been amazing, providing refreshments at these events, sponsoring t-shirts and water bottles for all the learners, as well as providing sound and sports equipment for the sports day.
As Tumi (Corporate Affairs Manager at ABI), said in her speech at the launch, “ABI does not just talk the talk, they indeed walk the walk”. ABI’s involvement in these few weeks is testimony to that. IkamvaYouth kzn is indeed privileged and honored to be partnering with not just a major company, but a team of individuals dedicated to the upliftmet of others!
Samkelo Nkosi speaking at the Careers Day
The ABI truck that provided entertainment and refreshments throught the day on Sports Day.
While all the Makhaza students enjoy the last week of their winter school holidays, taking a much needed break from the intense focused energy needed for winter school, the Western Cape matrics have given up their entire holiday to continue with tutoring, mentoring, exam preparation, and tertiary applications.
This week sees intensive academic writing and bursary application writing workshops being run by Rose and Francisca, two volunteers from Stanford university, as well as each matric filling out at least 5 application forms for tertiary. It’s only Wednesday and so far everyone has applied for UCT, TSiBA, UWC, CPUT, Northlink and a few for Stellenbosch University. All this interspersed with tutoring, tutoring and more tutoring (with the odd test thrown in..)
Big up matrics!! The end is nearly in sight, by giving up your holiday for this last gasp of intensive tutoring and mentoring it’s setting yourself up for a spectacular finish at the end of the year!
There are only a few days left, if you are interested in tutoring or mentoring the matrics, please email liesel@ikamvayouth.org, alternatively call Zukile on 021 362 6799
On the 29th of June, at the Durban University of Technology Sports grounds, IkamvaYouth Umlazi and Chesterville branches held the first IYKZN Sports day.
The day was to be filled with fun activities for the learners and volunteers alike. The best part of the story is that ABI was to come on board and help out on the day. They came through in a big way. Not only did they provide balls, bibs, whistles, refreshments, juice bottles and T-shirts, they also brought staff members to volunteer and participate in the day’s activities, as well as a huge entertainment truck to keep the energy going throughout the day.
The ABI entertainment truck
The first order of the day was the 100+ learners and volunteers separating themselves into 4 teams. The teams, which were initially colour coded (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow), were tasked with coming up with a creative name, designing a flag, and coming up with a war-cry/song to represent their team.
The red team (Umlilo)
The green team (Izingqungqulu)
The blue team (Blue buuls)
The yellow team (Peace makers)
The day kicked off with soccer and netball knock-out tournaments running alongside each other. The ABI staff were deep in the thick of things, with some guys playing in the matches and others serving as officials. The netball matches were very heated, with guys and girls, volunteers and learners all getting in on the action. The same can be said for the soccer match, where 4 ABI employees were deep in the action. The matches were action packed and very diverse in terms of paricipation.
After the soccer and netball, we saw athletics going under way. With a 100m dash, 400m and 100m egg relay all being on the cards. Once again everyone stepped up to the plate, volunteers, ABI employees, and learners alike participated in every event.
The last part of the day was the indigenous games. The leaners played games such as marbles, tops, skipping rope and stones (amagenda). This was really fun for the learners, as these are games that are played in the townships.
throughout the day ABI provided us with bottomless refreshments, not a single person went thirsty. Special thanks to the ABI team for their presence, it was really felt. In closing we all cleaned up the grounds and left them spotless and to a group photo with everyone who was there.
Netball action
The Soccer players stretching
Lloyd Lungu