Saturday the 21st of September 2013 was a very exciting day for the Ikamvanites. Despite waking up to very cold weather, Ikamvanites from both the Ebony Park and Ivory Park branches came together at the Ebony Park branch to receive special gifts from the Tzu Chi Foundation.
Dean Teng, a Tzu Chi Foundation representative said that the young Ikamvanites have always helped and supported The Tzu Chi Foundation when they were conducting their Winter Relief Community Outreach Programmes over previous months. Dean said it was now the Ikamvanites’ turn to receive from Tzu Chi. A truck full of bags of 5kg rice as well as stationery packs parked on the IkamvaYouth premises and each Ikamvanite was handed the gifts from Tzu Chi. The learners were so thankful and appreciated having such support from people coming from very far away. The young ladies, especially, had to grow some muscles to carry everything they had been given back to their homes because it was really heavy.
The Tzu Chi Foundation has been working together with IkamvaYouth for 3 years. They bring fruits to the learners every Saturday morning and have also given some of our Grade 12s bursaries to continue with their tertiary education.
Thank you Tzu Chi for your continued support to all the Ikamvanites!!!
We are entering an exciting stage of our development as we enter the 10th year of delivering tutoring and mentoring services to South Africa’s youth. We developed Vision 2030 at the end of 2012, which is to see the one million learners who start Grade 1 in 2018 matriculating and accessing employment by 2030. For this to happen we need to work together.
We issued a call for potential community partners in July 2013. Applications came from all over South Africa and we have had the pleasure of meeting a number of these organisations and individuals. The selflessness that we have seen, the extra jobs people are taking just to pay tutors transport costs, to buy learning resources and to build extra tutoring rooms, has truly inspired us. The realisation that there are so many people who are unshakably committed to a better future for South Africa’s youth has led us to widen and deepen our call for partners. We want to involve as many people as we can in the collaboration project so that these superheroes are recognised for, and supported in the work that they do.
At the beginning of this year IkamvaYouth was proud to have supported over 3,000 students through grades 8-12. The majority of whom have gone on to study at universities and colleges, and secure themselves competitive job placements. This group of inspirational students, along with the volunteers and staff that have tutored and mentored them, are part of the ever-growing Ikamvanite family.
The IkamvaYouth model offers a solution to the education challenges facing South Africa. Bill Clinton once said “Nearly every problem has been solved by someone, somewhere. The challenge of the 21st century is to find out what works and scale it up.” We have a solution and through collaboration and collective learning we hope to scale this solution by enabling other actors to replicate these results.
We have spent 10 years making mistakes, learning from them and developing a high-impact tutoring and mentoring model based on these lessons. What has been produced is a model that can be easily replicated while allowing for adjustment to specific contexts. The key principles and success is based on starting early, maintaining commitment, tutoring not teaching, and assisting with post-school placements.
This sounds too simple to be true, but IkamvaYouth has proven that a solution to the education crisis does not have to be a complicated and costly project but can be a simple beneficiary-led programme driven by a passionate community. There are hundreds of organisations across the country working for the same ends, so why not work together?
We are now calling to everyone to scour the Western Cape for those movers and shakers, those individuals and organisations that inspire you, those who are going above and beyond to deliver education programmes for South Africa’s youth. We want to meet them, share with them, enable them and support them in the implementation of tutoring programmes that by 2030 will have supported every learner to reach Grade 12.
It is time for this family to get bigger! There are various levels of involvement from online access to resources to formal partnership.
Please contact zoe@ikamvayouth.org or call 0744767965 for more details about working together.
ENKE LEADERSHIP CAMP CONTRIBUTORS: SIBONGISENI JONAS ZIZO MDINGI SINENJONGO NGXAMELENI NCEBAKAZI NGCABA ZIZIPHO NGXOLA SINOVUYO QABA Attending the Enke Forum Class of 2013 was a great experience! It was incredibly fun and worth the long journey from Masiphumelele to Wellington. On our first day we had to introduce ourselves to the other trailblazers who hailed from various provinces within our country. One of the memorable things about the camp was that every games and/or activity held a lesson which was incredible. We learned lifelong lessons about leadership skills and gained increased knowledge, compared to what we knew about the subject before. We now have the task of applying the knowledge which was imparted. Even more, we have an opportunity to impact our communities and as the youth, we are eager to change the world in order to be a better place. On 7 July, the CEO of MXIT gave a profound speech and one of our Masinites, Sibongiseni Jonas thanked him on behalf of all the learners.We were each given an opportunity to choose a project which will uplift our community. The Enke leadership made us realise that the future lies in our hands and we can change the world. In order to bring about change, we need to think positively about ourselves and allow nothing to stand in our way. Coupled with strength and courage, we shall succeed in our projects and carry on our leadership skills. Various towns and countries were represented and this added to the diversity of the camp. It was compulsory to speak English and this also improved our language proficiency. Another highlight was when we watched a video of a girl and her boyfriend. The couple was in love and in a trusting relationship. The girl cheated on her boyfriend and she wanted to shift the blame. The moral of the story was, “Love someone as if it is the last day of your life.” Despite the story relating to a romantic relationship, it also showed us how we should treat each other. Lastly, it is important that we relate one of the lessons on leadership that we were taught at the Enke Forum. We did a visualising exercise in which we had to project where we thought we would be 15 years from now; the need for respect and how to break free from our comfort zone. A wonderful, life changing experience that we shall never forget!
Tsiba Report
EDUCATION AND LIBERATION When we arrived at the June 16th Celebrations, it felt like we had stepped back into 1976 Sharpeville riots. This is true; when one considers that you are standing next to Antoinette Sithole, Hector Peterson’s sister. We find out that Hector Peterson’s traditional Xhosa name was Zolani. She told us about the day her brother was shot .She encouraged us to live a fulfilling life and to get educated because “…without education you are nothing.”
Antoinette also told us about the incorrect manner in which the nation is celebrating Youth Day/June 16. “It’s as if people are celebrating my brother’s death. It was inspiring as she explained that one’s background does not determine your future when it comes to education, especially with endless financial possibilities, like bursaries which are available. An interesting part of our day was when parents and children conversed in a quiz. One of the questions which was posed was, how do you feel about education in this democratic era?
MANDELA DAY On the 13th of July, we celebrated Mandela Day. As part of the Tsiba Project, we had to choose a practical project which we would assist for 67 Minutes. As Masiphumelele representatives, we chose to clean the Muizenberg beach. We wrote a message to Madiba, wishing him a speedy recovery. Our facilitators arrives and took pictures of what we had done, after which we returned to Tsiba. We were then addressed by a speaker who told us about how his grandmother taught him to achieve the seemingly impossible. For example, in the old days, women were not allowed to become lawyers. He notably also informed us that, without energy, a human being cannot function. We had a brilliant day!
The Grade 9 learners at the Makhaza Ikamva Youth branch take part in a Numeric Khan Academy programme every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. They practice various maths concepts on an online platform called Khan Academy. This programme enables learners to practice maths at their own pace and to build up foundational maths topics. Led by coach, Yanga Zukelwa, this year’s Grade 9s have mastered more maths concepts than in previous years. The Grade 9s work hard and look forward to attending these sessions.
As a way of rewarding learners for their effort and recognising the achievements of the group, Numeric held an Awards Ceremony for the learners on 31 August at the Ikamva Youth Office in Makhaza. Certificates were presented to learners based on the number of topics that they had mastered using the Khan Academy platform. In order to attain mastery in these topics, learners must get at least 10 maths sums correct in a row. In doing this, learners often have to complete more than 20 maths sums to achieve mastery in a topic, which means to earn the first certificate learners would have had to complete at least 500 maths sums on Khan Academy. Certificates were given out for 25 Mastered topics (Red Diamond Certificate), 50 Mastered Topics (Orange Diamond Certificate), and 75 Mastered Topics (Purple Diamond Certificate).
These learners should be very proud of themselves and their hard work because every learner earned a Red Diamond Certificate for Mastering at least 25 topics.
There were also some special awards for Most Committed Learner, Most Helpful Learner, Most Improved Learner, and a Drill Master Award for the learner who did best on arithmetic speed tests.
The event was a fun celebration of hard work and success! Well done to the Grade 9s at the Ikamva Youth Branch in Makhaza!
Lloyd Lungu