Mphumzi Klaas passed away on 26 June. Ikamvanites are grieving for this amazing colleague, tutor, mentor and friend. Mphumzi has been integral to IkamvaYouth since he joined in 2005, while doing grade 11. He has since fulfilled various important roles at the Makhaza branch, and has been an inspiration and friend to hundreds of ikamvanites. When introducing himself to visitors, he’d proudly say that he does “a little bit of everything” at IkamvaYouth, and it was true. Besides keeping the Makhaza branch going and consistently aiming higher, Mphumzi was the glue of the Makhaza family with his deep commitment and great sense of humour.
The memorial service is on the 6th of July 2011 at Desmond Tutu Hall. It will start at 17:30 until 19:00. Click here for the directions from town, and contact me direct 0789929269 if you get lost.
The funeral is on 9 June at Solomon Mahlangu Hall, next to Harry Gwala High School / Kuyasa train station. It will start at 9:30am until 12o’clock.
The Cheetah Sanctuary’s outreach program came to Makhaza’s Winter School on Wednesday, 29th June, to run a workshop on conservation of cheetahs’ habitats. On the following day the group was taken to the facilities of the Sanctuary, where they had the chance to play with adult cheetahs and study them from close proximity.
Anamhla from grade 10 said: “I really enjoyed the afternoon and I wasn’t even scared when I got the chance to play with an adult cheetah. I also learned a lot. Did you know cheetah was the fastest animal on Earth?
Special thanks to the Cheetah Sanctuary’s volunteers.
My name is Unathi and I am a tutor at the Makhaza branch of Ikamva and part of the winter school, I tutor many different subjects but especially accounting, business and economics. I’m currently studying at UWC.
Here is what my week has been like:
Tuesday:
My expectations from the two weeks period and how will it affect my future?
i expect students to bring questions, challenge the tutors on their different streams and make sure
they go home with a lot learned on that particular day.
I expect commitment from both management, tutors and well yes the students.
TUTORING- I spent time with a grade 12 learner tutoring one on one for economics, it ends productive.
Wednesday-
More tutoring, engagement with the students which are in my stream. the learners are challenging in terms of school work and in bringing questions for the next day.
WORKSHOPS- on the workshop I hear about stuff that I’ve never really knew, from the Jewish centre.
my experience- me well i knew little about the history of Germany and i never knew that the laws they had during Hitlers’ period of being president, some how were related with few laws the South African Apartheid Government made. GRATEFULL TO IKAMVA FOR THE WORKSHOP AND THE JEWISH CENTRE.
Thursday-
I’ve engaged with a learner who is doing his matric, I’ve noticed that we need a more time on his commercial studies i.e economics and business.
WORKSHOPS- in a group with the learners, we hear about LUCCA LEADERSHIP. The 1st hour of the session learners were not really engaging with the facilitators, but they got a break after that they were engaging- asking questions and answering when they are asked questions, after the workshop we get a chance to talk about what caused them not to engage, well they tell me they are too shy to speak english. We conclude that they need to practice their english all the time.
Now it’s Friday morning, tutoring is happening for all the grades in Maths, Science, History, Geography, Accounting, Business and Economics. The grade 11 science students have gone to UCT to participate in Science experiments, looking forward to the afternoon workshops!
There are many other streams and workshops happening which other tutors are involved in, you’ll get to hear about them from the others.
Unathi Smile x
The much-anticipated 2010 Annual Report is out!
A huge thanks to volunteers Lynne Stuart for the very beautiful design and layout, and to Julia de Kadt for proofreading.
The Report is a multi-media feast, with links to blog posts and youtube clips throughout. Take some time out to learn more about IkamvaYouth and the ikamvanites’ remarkable stories of 2010, share the links you like and enjoy!
We have been studying the poetry from ‘Through Our Eyes’ in English class. My Year 9 High school students in Australia spent a few weeks reading and reflecting on the insightful and inspiring poetry from IkamvaYouth. I, their teacher, spent a year in Cape Town in 2008 and volunteered with Ikamva as a tutor as well as taking part in all the other wonderful things that were being done. I was at the exhibition of the photos from the book and ran an interactive body percussion workshop at the launch. Some of you might remember the slogan we sang: Pictures are our stories of the world through our eyes.
As a result, it was so exciting when I started teaching in High school and realised that I could use this opportunity to spread the story of IkamvaYouth, a self sustaining, innovative organisation. At the same time, I could expose my students to some new themes and introduce them to some of the passionate people I had met, through their poetry.
We spent a few classes discussing HIV and AIDS, exchanging information that is essential for all young people. This tied in very well with Thobela’s poem ‘I want the meaning of Positive’ and it sparked much conversation about HIV as a personal and global issue and what life might be like if the word ‘Positive’ took on a new meaning from the one you’d been taught as a child. ‘Do you know your status’ was also another poem that struck my students. Life can be planned. We can strive for dreams, but all that could come to nothing if we don’t know our status. ‘I had never realised’ was another poem that we enjoyed, because it told about how perspectives change as a result of experiences. Often we don’t realise things until they stare us right in the face. This poem allowed us to question our lives and our assumptions, and begin to wonder how many things ‘we’ haven’t realised yet. It also led us to discuss what might be similar in the lives of teenagers in Khayelitsha and Australia, and what things might be different.
We also spent some time looking at the Photo Gallery on the IkamveYouth website, and that allowed us to spend an afternoon seeing Khayelitsha through your eyes as well as catching a glimpse of some of the poets in the photos. Here are my students’ reflections on some of the poetry. We’d like to thank all the poets and photographers for the snapshot of their lives, that allowed us to enter and learn from the experience. I’d also like to thank Joy for allowing us to share our reflections with you.
Eva Franklin
Lloyd Lungu