“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!
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.
Ikamvanites had an amazing opportunity to be part of a Write4Life workshop at the end of March organised by FunDza Literacy Trust. The aim of the workshop is to support aspiring writers on their literary journey and provide them with useful skills to practice their craft. All the learners who participated acquired skills to translate their creative ideas into accessible and engaging pieces of work. They also had a chance to network with other keen writers and learn from the group experience. They got the opportunity to practice techniques to communicate effectively in the written form and receive good tips for writing for a critical audience.
By the end of the two day course , learners got the opportunity to produce a short story that was published on theFunDza network. Check them out here or on Mxit at (Tradepost > Mxit Reach > Mobi-Books > FunDza). The learners also received a certificate of participation.
Nomie one of the participant said “Never thought that writing would be so interesting. In Makhaza branch we were asked as learners to write a short paragraph if we are interested in writing workshop. I wrote the paragraph then I was amongst of the learners who were chosen to take part in Fundaza writing workshop. In the workshop I learned how to write poems, autobiography, short stories. In my life I never wrote anything before but now I can write lots of things. The facilitators were very helpful. Now I can’t wait to share the information with Ikamvanites and help them to be great writers like me”
An example of some of the things written is:
Can I, and other poems
Poet: Zintle Nyathi
School: Harry Gwala High School, Grade 11
Can I?
Can I be who I am ?
Can I no longer follow instructions?
I want to be myself again.
Can I be intelligent, as I was?
I want to be who I was back then.
I’m tired of satisfying you.
Can I be myself again?
Can I ask you one question?
What does this mean to you?
I’m falling: you’re not helping.
I was walking, but now I’m crawling.
I’m inspiring, but you are not appreciating…
Why?
Where does this lead in future?
I’m tired of you.
Can I be who I was?
No satisfaction, but appreciation.
I’m tired of your games.
I want to be myself again.
My heart has been like a mirror
that has broken
When I pick up my pieces
I still see the cracks.
Can I be myself again?
***
If I never…
If I never grew
If I never knew
If I never do
If I never grew to see all the new experiences
If I never knew to listen to all the news
If I never did tell you that I do
If I never knew that living needs all respect due.
If I never grew to see these untold new stories
If I never did tell you that I do – where it was just doomed feeling.
If I never knew that life has all these new things.
I would never grow because I won’t do.
If I never grew I wouldn’t do because I never knew.
***
Impossible Mission
Why does it seem to be so cruel?
Why does it take time to reach the destination?
If we always say it’s impossible to achieve,
Day by day let them go by
Night by night watch the beauty of the stars
without observing the destination.
We let fear to our system of body
and let it bring fear to our imagination.
The most impossible mission – we all people surrender
Where this road is not taken
But you never gave it even a single try.
Why? Why?
Impossible mission. Impossible mission.
Let days pass by. Nights sleep not having a dream to take even one step.
Why impossible mission?
Mission is a destination to reach
But ups and downs are considered in this cruel world
you life or die but family is important.
For every story there’s success.
Behind success there’s a story.
Let impossible to possible be – strive for victory!
Big thank you to FunDza for this wonderful event, read some of the other works created here
Masiphumelele March Newsletter highlights…
Leopard Trust Camp
The Easter Holidays begun and to celebrate we loaded a bus full of the most committed Ikamvanites (most were platinum learners with 100% attendance) and drove to the Cedarberg wilderness picking up some young people from Mitchells Plein along the way.
Ikamvanites had expressed an interest in being exposed to more diversity, which spoke to Nico and my heart. We therefore jumped at the invitation from the The Leopard Trust and roped in a church group and Mondale High School in Mitchells Plein and headed off for a week of sleeping in tents, eating off laps, and having cold showers!
The programme was a perfect mix of social and personal development alongside conservation, environmental awareness, cultural history and leisure. As you can imagine it was a rather special week. Students were challenged with a 4 hour hike up to the Wolfberg Cracks, a solo hike, cooking for 30 people, and washing up for 30 people. Games were played around the campfire in English, Xhosa, Afrikaans and even French (so Nico didn’t feel excluded). Moreover it gave a chance for youth from different backgrounds and cultures to unite and find common ground and develop beautiful friendships.
With words like ‘Phenomenal’ and ‘Mind-blowing’ being used to describe the week it clearly had an impact on the learners. Various lessons were learnt over the week. Phumza Kibi realised ‘that as people we must look after each other and help someone if she/he needs help. There is no room for selfishness”. Many opened their eyes to the need for environmental conservation and committed themselves to recycling and saving water in their communities. The camp gave learners confidence, both socially and personally; “I will now never give up, I will always strive to reach the top!!” Okuhle Beyaphi.
Ladies Club Sleepover and Beach Day
Isabel Malone has been holding Ladies Club once a week for the past few months and decided to organise a sleepover and beach day in her final month. 20 ladies, including GAP volunteers ascended on Isabel’s house on the 24th March and tucked into spaghetti, snacks, popcorn, and chocolate whilst they watched chick flicks, and discussed all manner of issues and topics.
The Sunday was spent on Muizenberg beach getting rather windswept. Several were brave enough to tackle the ocean on a surf board. We now most certainly have some surfer girls on our hands!
Man Club hike and St James swimming lessons
Man Club is firmly up and running and March saw the men learning to swim, and hiking up local mountains. It is such an important project that emphasises what it is to be a man and the responsibilities and pressures that young men of South Africa have put upon them and how they can navigate these pressures and duties without jeopardizing their futures.
This Tuesday, on 10 April 2012, IkamvaYouth will be announcing some exciting news that is a first for any organisation or company in South Africa. In fact, it is a first for any organsiation or company in the whole of Africa. We’re strictly forbidden from letting you know what it is until then but once the official announcement is made you can be sure that you will be the first to know. Log on to the IkamvaYouth website early on Tuesday morning for the full details.
Clue: It’s an award that is very closely linked to one of our CORE values, and relates not just to WHAT we do at IkamvaYouth but also HOW we do these things as IkamvaYouth.
Can you guess what it is about?
Lloyd Lungu