The experience with Zoe-Life and their ICS volunteers was amazing and educational to both tutors and learners that were involved in the workshop. We were taught different types of bullying; emotional bullying; physical bullying; cyber bullying; and also sexual bullying. IkamvaYouth learners were engaged on an educational game that dealt with the use of drugs and alcohol, and how it can affect your life, people around you and your body and mind.
Learners got an opportunity to ask questions pertaining to their lives or what they are currently facing. The ICS crew delivered in terms of reaching out to the IkamvaYouth learners, helping them in understanding what bullying is, the effects that it has; what drugs are and how they can destroy your life; what alcohol is, and how it can harm one’s life. They ran another workshop covering issues around HIV and AIDS and these workshops really made an impact on the Ikamvanites and we are grateful as IkamvaYouth Chesterville.
By Philiswa Ntoyini
Once again it has been that time of the year when prizes were given to students who were committed to their studies through IkamvaYouth. On the 28th of November 2015, Masiphumelele Branch had fun and celebrated their year-end at the prize giving. The event started at 09:45 on Saturday morning and it was well attended by learners, parents, tutors, Mr Swarts the guest speaker and the IkamvaYouth staff.
Learners get motivated by people who have been through the same phase as they are in, the guest speaker even mentioned that they should invest on their time, they should have dreams with visions and put some actions into it. Not only learners but everyone who attended could use these words in order to achieve successful goals.
Certificates were given to learners who obtained between 75% and 100% of attendance as an evidence as to how committed they were and these learners survived kick outs. Some learners received certificates of excellence for different achievements such as learner of the year, Book Club participation, and English improvement with the FUNdamentals programme.
Tutors were appreciated for their effortless time spent at IkamvaYouth throughout the year helping other learners to improve on their studies.
Most of the tutors were learners at Ikamva, after finishing their matric they came back as tutors. Tutors received IkamvaYouth nice designed hoodies.
It was good to see learners achieving, an achievement does not have to be something big in order to be regarded as an achievement.
Life officially begins!!!!!!
On the 25/11/2015 we held a preparation session for the Ikamvanites in Joza branch. Due to the common trend of students committing suicides upon discovering they’ve failed, we saw the need to equip them in advance so that they know failure is not the end but the chance to begin knowing where one went wrong in the first place.
We were blessed with the presence of two wonderful social workers who engaged with the students. The session was truly inspiring and uplifting, everyone participated in the discussion. One learner had this to say about the experience “Today was helpful and an addition concerning things I had no knowledge of.” Sibulele Moyakhe.
We plan on expanding on this collaborative effort with social development by providing all our learners the necessary support, across all grades (10-12) during the entire course of the coming year.
Thank You Social Development in Grahamstown
Saturday 21st November was the last Parents’ meeting of the year at the Masiphumelele branch.
Besides reporting on learners’ numbers, attendance, kick-outs and extra-murals, we presented the prospects for 2016.
In fact, the Computer Literacy programme will be implemented since January. In order to build learners’ ability to communicate in English, the Book Club, the English FUNdamentals and the preparation for the ANAs will also be run next year.
Regarding the Grade 11s and 12s the focus of the meeting was on liaising with the parents to organise next year learners’ support around the mentoring programme and tertiary application process. Some Grade 11s (see attached picture) came to present their career aspirations through their Vision Boards.
As the learner number will increase from 95 learners to 119 in Masi next year, we also called for recruiting learners and tutors.
Finally 2 parents have been nominated and chosen to be Parent’s representatives for 2016.
We are all ready for the new year!!
As can be seen in our
Annual Report 2014 was the year of growth for us: our matric class was 63% bigger than the previous year, we reached over 1,700 learners and we opened our tenth branch. But let’s not forget why we are here, for most of South Africa’s children, the only way out of poverty is through education. Ikamvanites (IkamvaYouth learners) continue to prove that anyone and everyone – irrespective of the school one attends and the socio-economic status of one’s parents can achieve his dreams and escape poverty.
Please read more in our 2014 annual report about the innovation of our model, why we need more Ikamvanites, hear from the Ikamvanites themselves and why our three largest donors of 2014 (Omidyar Network, Amalgamated Beverage Industries and Capitec Foundation) continue to support us.
It is thanks to these donors and many others that we have been able to achieve the results that we have over the last 12 years. South Africa’s future rests on the success of our children. IkamvaYouth is fundraising to reach even more of South Africa’s children in 2016 and needs your support. Please contact me if you would like to discuss supporting IkamvaYouth or find out more about us.
Lloyd Lungu