“Drum Beats……” And the Winner of a New Samsung Phone is Mary Makgamatha who is joined by her colleague Nompumelelo Nkosi in celebrating her achievement. Mary’s poster won in an IkamvaYouth Democracy competition announced in a joint session between Ebony and Ivory Park Branches. The awarding of these prizes took place on Saturday the 14th of April 2012 just after the tutorial session. The competition was open to both tutors and learners.
Mary could not contain her happiness when Modjadji handed over the Samsung phone in a box and expressed her gratitude to her colleagues that have encouraged and supported her when she was engaging her creative juices, to produce a story-telling, winning poster. Well done, Mary!
1st Annual Ikamva Youth Umlazi open day
Our newly launched Umlazi branch hosted its first annual open day on Saturday, 14 April 2012. Learners and parents gathered at Umlazi AA Library, where our new branch is located.
S’bonelo Cele, Branch coordinator of IkamvaYouth UMlazi welcomed all the learners, parents, volunteers and sponsors. S’bonelo gave an impressive presentation about Ikamva Youth; his opening remarks highlighted the purpose of the Ikamva Youth at uMlazi. “Learners at IkamvaYouth UMlazi will not only be tutored, but they will also get the chance to take part in extramural activities, such as poetry sessions, visual arts and music”, said Cele.
Learners also got a chance to watch an inspiring documentary by Anna Telford, titled “Flying Colours”. The film follows Akhona, a young learner who was studying towards her final matric examinations, who was an Ikamva learner and now is at the University of Cape Town. This documentary highlights the challenges facing learners from disadvantaged backgrounds and how Ikamva has helped them to turn their problems into an opportunities.
Mrs Teboho Mzizi, the Senior manager of libraries in the Durban area, spoke about the role played by libraries in promoting and supporting education. She also spoke about the library resources such as an E-zone and study halls available for learners. She explained the importance of the library membership and how it will benefit them. Mzizi urged the youngsters to take the tutoring seriously as it will help them get good symbols for university entry.
Mr Samkelo Nkosi, from our sponsor ABI, spoke about the importance of organizations like Ikamva Youth and why they support and encourages them. He also spoke about the plan for other IY branches to be opened in future.
The previous Ikamvanites from Chesterville branch shared their experiences with Ikamva and tutors as well as how they improved with their skills in subjects like mathematics and physical science after joining Ikamva Youth to the learners. They also spoke about how they were easily accepted at Universities. The potential new learners were then given an opportunity to ask questions about the programme. The presence of parents made the day fulfiling, as some questions came from the parents. Application forms were then handed out to the learners.
Learners and some parents who were present at the open day
Learners were also entertained by the poetry and music from our previous Ikamvanites. The day ended with refreshments from ABI, and learners got the chance to meet with the tutors and taking pictures.
Umlazi Tutors, S’bonelo Cele and Thabisile Seme with Samukelo Nkosi
IkamvaYouth Gauteng had an extra-ordinary Saturday Tutoring Session on the 14th of April as we took the last hour of the tutoring session to celebrate IkamvaYouth being the first South African (and African) organisation to make it onto the WorldBlu-accredited list of the “World’s most Democratic Organisations”. The two branches in Gauteng (Ebony Park and Ivory Park) came together making the venue full to capacity with over 250 learners and over 50 tutors. The celebration was attended by our Guest Speaker Phumza Makanya-Ojowuro, the Director of Employee Relations and Wellness at UNISA who spoke to everyone who was present about what Democracy is and how important it is to South Africa and the world. She also expressed how proud she was of IkamvaYouth and how this is an important announcement to the whole country.
To mark the occasion, the IkamvaYouth branches in Gauteng were running a competition for learners and volunteers to submit a response to the question, “What does democracy mean to me.” Learners wrote essays and employed their creative means to answer this question. This day was filled with loads of fun as the winners who entered our competition were announced after Phumza’s Makanya- Ojowuro’s speech. Five learners walked away with airtime vouchers and two learners walked away with a cellular phone voucher each. Our funders African Bank and ABI attended the function with ABI bringing drinks to hand out to everyone who was present at the celebrations. The Tzu Chi Foundation, who have been great IkamvaYouth Gauteng supporters, were also present and brought along their boxes full of apples for all the learners and volunteers.
The learners were especially inspired as one of the learners Shaun Theko said, “She’s glad she is living in a democratic South Africa and even more glad that IkamvaYouth has continued to be such a good example to everyone.”
We continue to reiterate the words spoken by Joy Olivier Co-founder and Director of IkamvaYouth, “democracy is not just something we do at IkamvaYouth, it is who we are.”
Makhaza and Nyanga branch assistants Zukile and Asanda attended an Effective Volunteer Management Training workshop which was held by Volunteer Centre at Claremont Library. This course is developed for managers/coordinators of volunteers to assist them in strengthening their management and support systems for their local and international volunteers. They also help organisations and their volunteers to understand their roles and responsibilities and expectations.
After these 3 days I realised that it is very important to treat volunteers well and make sure they happy. The value of the volunteers cannot be measured. Their contribution is critical to organisations operations and activities. One of the things I really enjoyed about the training is that our organisation IkamvaYouth is already doing all the things organisation should do to make sure that the volunteers are recognised. I learned the following things about tutor retention:
Training
Provide tutors with appropriate training, regular evaluation, and recognition. This means that all the tutors should get a training on how to be good tutor, what to do? And what is not needed to do.
Support and supervision
Regular opportunities for support and supervision are important and can help to identify, and even prevent demotivation which can result in volunteers leaving the organisation. This means that the branch assistance has to make sure that he/ she manages the volunteers, making sure that they get all the material they need to tutor. Also manage new tutors, by partnering them with old tutors. Also make sure that all the tutors have a group of learners to tutor. One of the things that cause tutors not to come back again is poor management. If they do not get the learners to tutor they get bored and do not come back again.
Recognition
Once tutors are working within our organisation it is essential to maintain their motivation and enthusiasm if they are to be retained. Care must be taken to treat volunteers in such a way that they will want to stay with the organisation. Developing activities that meet volunteers individual needs, provide recognition and appreciation of their work and celebrate a sense of achievement will promote self-esteem, strengthen commitment and develop a feeling of belonging and loyalty to the organisation. At IkamvaYouth we already are rewarding our tutors, such as end of year ceremonies with certificates, tutor outings and employment opportunities.
I learn a lot from the course and I’ll be bringing a lot of the lessons to our Makhaza branch, especial making sure that we retained our tutors and show how much we value them.
On the 30th of March 2012 IkamvaYouth learners from Nyanga had an awesome educational day facilitated by Andisiwe Wenani from Lovelife.
LoveLife’s youth programmes are structured activities and strategies that are designed to get South Africa talking about HIV and its underlying sexual dynamics, Inspire young people towards an HIV-free future and prepare them to cope with high-risk transitions, specifically school leaving, by building their sense of identity, purpose and belonging. Enable young people to understand the risk of HIV, decide that risk is not worth taking, and equip them with skills to avoid the risk. Develop personal enterprise and resilience and build an immediate and real sense of possibility by creating new links to opportunity. Expand the range of possibilities available to young people and build a sense of collective solidarity. Tackle social and structural inequality and strengthen institutional support aimed at the development of youth and the prevention of HIV and Aids among youth.
The workshop was mainly informative but also focused on participation. The learners had a huge input by asking lots of questions about Lovelife programmes and activities that will be implemented during the course of the year by Love Life with Nyanganites.
With a huge variety of programmes, learners showed a great deal of interest and excitement. What mostly triggered the learners was the mentioning of starting up a debateteam. Nopinki Mba a Nyanganite said “Being part of a debate team would help me to be able to speak in front of many people and to give me courage in taking a stand on what I have facts about”.
Big thanks to Lovelife for the time and an opportunity to equip Nyanganites about life and giving them skills so that they would be wise decision makers.
This will be an on-going workshop until all programmes are completed by Nyanganites then after the completion of the programmes there will be certificates handed out by Lovelife to all those who participated in all programmes.
Lloyd Lungu