IKAMVAYOUTH 2021 MATRIC RESULTS: AFTER-SCHOOL SUPPORT WORKS

IKAMVAYOUTH 2021 MATRIC RESULTS: AFTER-SCHOOL SUPPORT WORKS

We are an army of young people, changing the face of education in under-resourced communities, one Mathematics question at a time.  Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. This year, once again, we celebrate a year of hard work, as Ikamvanites produce stellar results. 

We are proud to share with you that our Matric class of 2021 achieved a 90% pass rate. Of the 543 learners who wrote their matric 487 passed, achieving a collective 258 distinctions. The matric class of 2021 started Grade 11, a crucial year of their schooling career, at the beginning of the lockdown in 2020.  This meant that many learners were at school less than 50% of the year and the only support that they were receiving at home was from IkamvaYouth via online tutoring sessions and support. 

Nationally, the matric class  of 2021, achieved a 76.5% pass rate. We recognise the unique challenges faced by this cohort over the past two years; such as the implementation of class platooning which caused learners to miss 50% (or more) of school. We witnessed better resourced schools distributing textbooks  and conducting online learning, while learners in communities we work in had to self teach with no resources. lt is, therefore, commendable that the national cohort managed to achieve these results when 80% of learners attend under-resourced schools.

As we celebrate our learners’ pass rate, it is also important that they ultimately access post-school opportunities that will enable them to earn a dignified living.  We are proud to share that 54% of learners achieved a Bachelor’s pass, and 79% achieved tertiary eligibility. We will now provide intensive support to last year’s Grade 12 learners to ensure that they access post-school opportunities.

Our CEO Hope Chidawanyika said:  “Year on year, our matric results are a true testament of the power of after-school tutoring support programmes such as ours.  We are extremely proud of the 2021 cohort who braved through two years of interrupted learning to achieve great results. The learners in our programme work extremely hard and every day they teach us all something new about what people can accomplish if they’re just given the opportunity and the support they need to reach their goals. I am excited about their future”. 

Our regional performances are also noteworthy. Our Gauteng and North West region achieved a 90% pass rate and a collective 112 distinctions. One top learner from the Diepsloot Branch, Kelebogile was amongst the province’s top performing pupils. Kelebogile was honoured by the Gauteng MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi, at the recently held Matric Breakfast. He received 2 prestigious awards for his remarkable 100% pass in Mathematics and Physical Sciences as well as for achieving 7 distinctions.

Our Gauteng and North West District Manager Busi Nkosi says, “We are extremely proud of the achievements of our top performer Kelobogile, He is a great example of ‘your background does not define your achievements’. We are privileged to not only impact Kelebogile but all learners who go through our programme by providing a consistent and stable safe space that motivates them to remain committed to attending sessions despite the many challenges they may face. Through their resilience, they conquered”

Our Western Cape region also produced great results, achieving an 88% pass rate across all five branches. Two of our branches in the region, Kuyasa and Atlantis achieved 100%. The Western Cape is where the IkamvaYouth story began. We are proud of what this region continues to accomplish, through building a strong community of dedicated tutors, nurturing relationships with parents, collaborating with schools, teachers, and subject advisors, as well as partnerships with local organisations.

Silubonile, a learner from our Nyanga Branch had this to say, “The IkamvaYouth programme helped me get rid of a bad habit, I was not studying at home. IkamvaYouth offered us a place to study so I would get a portion of my time at school during lunch and after school to study in their lab. The tutors helped us with tips and helped me realise my learning and study styles which equipped me to study at home. I have now passed my matric, and I am going to study B.Com Accounting at the University of the Western Cape”.

Our KwaZulu Natal/Eastern Cape region also achieved impressive results achieving a 93% pass rate across the three branches. Worth mentioning is our Joza branch, in Makhanda where 96% of the learners passed, 65% achieved a Bachelor’s Pass, and 83% are eligible for tertiary. In the Eastern Cape where pass rates have been low, passing matric is a huge accomplishment, and achieving tertiary eligibility means an opportunity to change the trajectory of these learners’ lives. 

We are extremely proud of all these achievements, showing the effectiveness of after-school interventions. Not only has 2021 produced great results, but a five-year analysis of our results have also shown an improvement in our programme’s success, particularly our Bachelor’s passes that have steadily grown from 38% in 2017, to 54% in 2021. We continue to refine our model and ensure learners in our programme produce quality results.

We would like especially to thank the over 700 IkamvaYouth volunteer tutors, who continue to show up for the learners. Many are in tertiary and in jobs, however, they still share their limited time with the learners.  We recently caught up with Simthembile who matriculated from Nyanga Branch in 2018 and is now a tutor. She had this to say:  “With the support that I received at the branch when I was a learner, I knew that I had to pay that forward to others. Our tutors then taught us how to support each other and I had to give back.”

Our Board Chairperson Putukwane Madisha says, “To the IkamvaYouth team and volunteers, congratulations for your great work. It is through your hard work and passion for the education of young people that we are able to consistently achieve great results, and ensure quality passes for learners who have such scarce resources at their disposal. I would also like to thank every one of our donors, for investing in our work, and all our implementing and thinking partners for walking the journey with us. Lastly, to the learners, your commitment and effort has shown in these excellent results. Congratulations and see this as a first step to uplifting yourselves, your families and your communities to a brighter future.” 

Again congratulations Ikamvanites, we look forward to seeing many of you making a mark in the next chapter of your lives!

MESSAGE FROM OUR CEO: 2021 REFLECTIONS

MESSAGE FROM OUR CEO: 2021 REFLECTIONS

Dear Friends and colleagues

As 2021 draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to look back at the year, to celebrate with you our successes, reflect on the hurdles we triumphed over, and update you on new frontiers we have crossed.

I am excited to share that in 2021, we completed the second stage of our minimum dosage research. The research confirmed that the longer an Ikamvanite is part of our programme (ideally seven terms) the better their performance in matric. Our matric results were a true testament of the effectiveness of our model. We started 2021 with a big celebration. Despite the school closures and disruption, our 2020 Matric cohort achieved an 88% pass rate. These are learners that had been in our programme for the recommended minimum time, meeting attendance rates.

While 2020 was a year that demanded us to rethink our work and find resources to support our pivot strategy, all our work in 2020 has supported us into 2021. We have continued to support young learners in under-resourced high schools with in-person and online academic support, as well as career guidance programmes. Our work is now more important than ever as we are already beginning to witness and project the long-term effects of schooling disruptions on our learners.  According to the NIDS-CRAM research released this year, the learning losses caused by these disruptions will take decades to recover from.

Organisational sustainability was a critical part of our forward looking plans. The fundraising landscape has become difficult in recent years, particularly exacerbated by the pandemic. This has invited us to think urgently on our own fundraising and income generating activities. We are excited to share that in 2021, we put together an advisory committee, to assist with our sustainability efforts. With the input from the advisory committee, we are looking to grow our self-generated income portfolio, leveraging on our existing model and resources to ensure we increase our reach and impact for the foreseeable future.

2022 brings to a close our three-year strategy and we are looking forward to bringing the team together, to carve our new three-year strategy taking us to 2025. We are excited about this chapter, and to witness the impact of these new plans on the learners in our programme.

As we reflect on the past year, and look to the future, I would like to extend my utmost gratitude to:

  • Our volunteer tutors; who are at the front-line of our renowned model, and paying it forward to the young learners in the programme.
  • IkamvaYouth staff, Board and Advisory committee; a hard-working team that is reliable and focused on fulfilling our mission. The team’s combined strength continues to make a formidable community of change-makers.
  • Our donors; our work would not be possible without their support.
  • Our stakeholders; the  Department of Basic Education, the schools and community halls that house our branches, all implementing partners in the after-school space, and the parents, for your ongoing support and contribution to our work.

May you all look back at the year with pride as you have all contributed to the wonderful story that is IkamvaYouth.

Just one more thing, as you go on your holidays, if you are not already, please consider joining our community of donors. Now more than ever, we need your support. Next year, we will open our doors in January to 2,600 learners across the country who in 2022 need our support now more than ever. Please sign up as a monthly donor via our Given Gain page or donate via the SnapScan code on our website.

I wish you all a restful holiday ahead and may 2022 bring new exciting opportunities for you.

Thank you

Hope

 

 

 

Our First Spring School

Our First Spring School

By: Damien Buckton, Fundraising Officer

More than 18 months after the pandemic hit, we are still dealing with the effects of the continuous lockdown. In turn, the subsequent school closures have forced us to be agile, to shift and pivot our approach to ensure that our learners remain engaged and supported with their school work. Every year, IkamvaYouth looks forward to the Winter School programme, an exciting period in our events calendar. 2021 saw us host our first Spring school, an additional holiday programme for learners, as our regular Winter School was disrupted due to the lock down. 

For this particular programme, our focus was directed at our Grade 11 learners who are preparing for their upcoming final exams.

 

We reserved a week during the October school holidays, to provide academic and non-academic support to our learners across all our 17 branches. Our staff were well equipped for the programme and had mapped out various activities; energisers; workshops and excursions for our learners at our branches to accompany the tutoring sessions and to make the programme experience more enjoyable for our learners.

 

The essence of our  holiday programme is to actively engage our learners in their studies by tackling and reflecting on some of the work they covered in their syllabus from term 1 to term 3. This is done through peer to peer learning, facilitated by our tutors as they highlight their learning gaps and support each other in bridging the gaps. 

 

It is certainly commendable to witness our learners display their dedication to learning by attending the programme during their school holidays. Our award-winning learner-driven model, and peer to peer support was in full display, as learners were bundled up in groups tackling challenges and solving various problems together.

 

Kwa-Zulu Natal/Eastern Cape

Our Kwa-Zulu Natal region had 183 learners turn up for the programme. One of the highlights from our Kwa-Zulu Natal region was that, this year we were fortunate enough to welcome industry professionals from one of our partner organisations, Old Mutual who conducted a financial literacy workshop with our learners at our Umlazi and Chesterville branches in KZN. The workshop provided our learners with valuable information and taught them the importance of saving your money. It was also positive to see our learners asking questions, engaging with the session.

During the hustle and bustle of Spring School, we managed to catch up with one of our grade 11 learners, Malibongwe, at our JOZA branch who gave some insight about what he thought about his experience.

 

“It was important for me to be a part of the Spring School because there was a lot that I did not understand in class that I needed help with. I really enjoyed them. It was fun to be with the other learners from other schools as well because we assisted each other as some have already done some topics at their schools and they were able to explain to us what we should look forward to. It was good to have tutors around because sometimes we have questions and tutors are not there to assist us but this time we had a number of tutors who were ready to answer our questions. I enjoyed the debates with the tutors as well as them telling us how they got to university and what we need to do to get there as well”.

 

Western Cape

A total of 211 learners attended this year’s programme at our Western Cape branches. 

Our Gugulethu and Nyanga, as well as the Makhaza and Kuyasa branches paired together and jointly hosted their Spring School. A notable highlight from the week was the hiking experience that our learners from our Gugulethu and Nyanga branches participated in.

To conclude a quite vibrant programme, learners and staff from our Gugulethu Branch sought out to conquer Newlands Forest while the Grade 11 learners from our Nyanga Branch made their way to Lion’s Head. 

Take a listen to what Ongieziwe, a Grade 11 learner in the Western Cape, made of her Spring School experience.Well my experience with the Spring School was great, I got to focus on the subjects I’m struggling with and having tutors around that  was more helpful Spring school helped me focus on my school work because if I was at home I wouldn’t even touch books”

 

Gauteng

Our invitation for the Spring school was well received by our learners in the Gauteng and North West region. 134 learners attended this year’s programme at our branches in Gauteng and the North West. Learners at our Mamelodi branch were visited by IkamvaYouth Training Manager, Pepe Hendricks as well as IkamvaYouth Alumni Coordinator, Neo Rakoma. During their visit, our staff elaborated about the importance of working hard in order to enter a tertiary institution and paying it forward for the next generation of students.

Linda, a learner at our Ebony Park Branch also shared her thoughts about what the Spring School programme meant for her The support provided by Ikamva was needed as some of us are behind with our school and coming to spend the whole day with learners from different schools was worthwhile as we exchanged knowledge. I learned other concepts which we have not covered at school from other learners and we even exchanged notes we had with my fellow peers”.

 

A big well done to  all our exceptional staff and learners for the incredible commitment and support in making our programme possible! We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the generous support shown by our donors. Through this support, we have been able to continue implementing an impactful Spring School programme aimed towards changing the trajectory of the lives of many young people.

Oppenheimer Memorial Trust’s KZN Intervention

Oppenheimer Memorial Trust’s KZN Intervention

By Damien Buckton, Fundraising Officer

July proved to be a difficult month for the nation, as we witnessed on-going unrest mainly in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region. Four days of unrest left many residents without access to basic amenities as shopping centers were closed. Many areas, particularly in township communities where we work, were left with no access to running water during that time, and movement was also limited. Learners and staff at our Kwa-Zulu Natal branches were directly affected as a result. 

Through our partnership with the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (OMT), we were able to support 53 families with food parcels we received through Gift of the Givers. The OMT has been our partner for over five years, supporting our work, to ensure we improve educational outcomes for high school learners. Through their support we have been able to reach over 2600 learners annually through our after-school tutoring programme. We therefore appreciate OMT as a partner that recognises the need for holistic interventions, and are able to support learners beyond the educational needs.

 

We extend our gratitude to The Oppenheimer Memorial Trust for extending their support to the 53 learners in our programme and their families. As a partner, OMT has demonstrated their commitment to supporting our mission of enabling young learners to reach their full potential, and place them on a path to earning a dignified living in the future. Beyond that, your intervention at this time has also shown your commitment to the holistic needs of our learners. 

Thank you!

The FirstJob Partnership Programme

The FirstJob Partnership Programme

By: Sisanda Mtana – HR & Training Intern

July marked the start of my journey with IkamvaYouth as Human Resource and Training (HR&T) Intern on the FirstJob Partner Programme, which is an initiative of the FirstRand Bank Limited.

 

The FirstJob Partner Programme has been operating in rural and urban areas and I have joined the fourth cohort of interns. The programme provides work experience to South African youth between 18 and 34 years of age that have never previously been in formal employment.We are provided with experiences in a specific field of interest including: education, human resources, training, finance and business, information and technology, as well as arts and culture. I am excited to be part of the programme. 

 

During my induction week, we learnt about the FirstRand Group and their procedures, terms and conditions, what they offer their interns, financial literacy, business communication and entrepreneurship. During the entrepreneurship session, interns formed groups and each group was required to develop and present a business idea. The group that I was a member of, called Writers World, jointly felt  that  we learnt so much from the facilitators who opened up our minds to entrepreneurship with their personal experiences. We believe that with a little support, we are able to start new business ventures. Interns from all the other host organisations  mentioned that they are thankful for the induction, they learnt so much, starting from budget workshop to the entrepreneurship workshop. 

 

Through IkamvaYouth’s induction process I learnt more about the organisation, their values and mission and what I am required to do for the organisation. 

 

As a HR&T Intern I am still navigating my way, trying to learn more about my role and putting my theoretical human resources knowledge into practice. The few days that I have been at Ikamva House have been heart-warming. Everyone is friendly and makes me feel at home and I am excited to join the team. In my opinion, there is nothing better than a positive workplace environment.

 

I am also excited to meet my Learner Support Coach. FirstRand allocates each intern a Learner Support Coach, who will provide psychosocial support and together with the intern create a Personal Development Plan (PDP) aligned to the job description of the intern and skill gaps that exist. This is meant to track development and growth in the world.

 

I am really thankful and very excited for this opportunity, it will help me to gain more experience and knowledge about human resources and training. The mere interaction during the induction process was an amazing experience and as interns it felt as if we had become a family.

Lloyd Lungu

031 909 3590
lloyd@ikamvayouth.org
2525 Ngcede Grove, Umlazi AA Library, 4031

Lloyd is a self-disciplined and highly goal-driven Industrial Psychology Honours graduate. He is currently a Master's candidate completing his second year of M.Com in Industrial Psychology at the University of the Free State. Lloyd joined IkamvaYouth as a learner in 2012, after matriculating he came back and volunteered as a tutor for the duration of his undergraduate studies at UKZN. He later worked as an Intern in the Chesterville branch. His passion for youth empowerment and inclusion has grown enormously through his time and experience gained within IkamvaYouth and has inspired him to provide career guidance to young township people. He is currently working at the Umlazi Branch as a Branch Assistant.