As the rain poured down, there was a fear spreading amongst us that no one was going to turn up; left with an empty library with rain tapping depressingly at the windows…
Thankfully, our fears were completely unfounded. More than 2500 students braved the weather and came to the Harare Library on Friday afternoon to explore their post-matric choices. The majority of students were Grade 12s but there were also a large number of Grade 11s, some Grade 10s and even some Grade 8s. It was great to see the younger learners beginning to think about their futures from a young age.
The queue to sign up for the workshops delivered by Jean Alfeld, Sizwe Matoti and Lindela Mjenxane
IkamvaYouth’s founding motto is one of future oriented thinking and pro-activity. The Careers Indaba is a fundamental step in fostering this mind set in the youth of South Africa. It is challenging to dream of a better future and to aspire to goals without knowing the realities of these goals and the opportunities that are available.
Universities, companies, and NGOs from all over Cape Town attended the fair. They did not merely provide factual information about careers and studying opportunities, but they also conversed with these young people and delivered a message of hope and possibility. This message is crucial for youth who are the victims of poor education systems and who live in a community plagued by poverty and all its products:
‘Academic failure is a consequence of the beliefs that students hold about themselves and about their ability to have control over their environments’ (G. Hutt & F. Pajares)
IkamvaYouth focuses on changing the mindset of youth, to think beyond their immediate circumstances and to believe in themselves and the possibilities that their futures hold.
When interviewed by The Sowetan reporter on Friday both Equal Education and IkamvaYouth agreed that this event is vital for youth in township schools and must be expanded. Tsepo Khanye, (NSFAS representative) also agreed: ‘This is a fantastic event and is well patronised. We need to make this bigger and longer, we need to get more youth exposed to it. Next year we should partner and hold something at Oliver Thambo hall to build on this success.’ Lets hope!
It was inspiring to see that there was appreciation for the event, both from exhibitors as well as students. Many learners commented at how much they had gained from the experience. An un-named Grade 12 from Mfuleni High School commented that ‘I have so much to think about now. About my future and about how I can get there’. More events of this nature are needed to make more youth believe that there are accessible and obtainable options for their futures.
Equal Education was the partner on this event and produced amazing publicity materials and helped to organize the day. IkamvaYouth is hugely appreciative to Ntshadi Mofokeng and her team for making it happen! A huge thank you to Lulama Langeni from the Harare Library for letting us take over her space for the whole day!
Since Susan Alexander began the Careers Indaba (winter school) in 2008 it has become an annual event at all 5 IkamvaYouth branches. This year 500 learners across the country were engaged in these 2 weeks programmes. At Masiphumelele 68 learners attended the library everyday to discover new information, meet new people and to explore themselves and their futures.
IkamvaYouth has the primary goal of enabling youth living in townships to access education. Thus the winter school had to squeeze in some tutoring time, much to the disgruntlement of the learners. Luckily a full scale revolt was evaded by the dedication of our volunteers who orchestrated literacy and numeracy fundamental sessions and somehow made learning fun!
Or maybe their discontent was quelled by the wide range of exciting and novel workshops and excursions; tai chi, computer blogging, drumming leadership, yoga, drama, creative writing, dance, debating and many more. A wonderful day was spent rock pooling under blue skies in at Cape Point and at St James with SaveourSeas Shark Centre. The budding journalists were bused off to Pinelands for a crash course in magazine production. Read about this project at www.livityafrica.com. We also made a trip to University of Western Cape for a Fun Day for all 3 Western Cape branches.
The daily speakers were amazing, providing real life testimonies about hard work and commitment, as well as developing learner’s knowledge about career and study options. One visitor of special note was Vice Chancellor of the University of the Free State and acclaimed writer Jonathan Jansen. Mr Jansen gave an inspiring talk to the learners, which was followed by a lively discussion about education in South Africa. He even offered the Ikamvanites 5 full scholarships to the University of the Free State. He must have been impressed!
The winter school is hugely significant for the underlying impact that it has on students: social skill development; productive engagement throughout the holidays; time to explore ones own interests; meeting and talking to peers; learning to appreciate volunteers; learning to believe in yourself. A Grade 10 learner commented: ‘I have had the bets time of my life here and I will always carry this memory with me’.
When everyday you are faced with the issues of poverty you have little time to think about yourself or to dream about your future. When these learners do take time to dream they do so within the confines of their self and society’s expectations of them. This mindset makes these expectations a reality and contributes to maintaining the cycle of wasted potential and poverty.
The winter schools give a chance for young people to think outside of these boundaries and to gain access to information that inspires them to dream far beyond them. IkamvaYouth is focused on harnessing these potentials and with the help of Masiphumelele Library they are achieving this.
On the last day of the winter school we held a drumming workshop conducted by the Rhythm Workshop (www.rhythmworkshop.co.za). I saw the vibration of a room full of 80 eager, excited and inspired faces, grinning uncontrollably as they followed the drum beats. It is times like this that make me love my job! Everyone who contributed to making the Careers Indaba a success helped to put smiles on faces and to inspire young minds.
For the first time ever Nyanga had more than 20 tutors joining the Nyanga Winter school which was attended by 55 learners which helped us to experience a ratio of 1:5 (one tutor and five leaners)
I would like to use this time and thank all tutors who took part in our Winter School and all the people who volunteered their time and facilitated workshops for our learners. Thank you too to our partners and sponsors for making this important event possible: UWC, Fedics, Dr Peter Mills and the Answer Series.
I would like us to all share our experiences on this Blog and write about what we have learnt during the two weeks
So let me start: its been 1 year and 10 months since I joined Ikamva Youth and it feels like a life time, this was my second Winter School that I coordinated and 2011 was just something else!! Thanx to you guys
I had an oppotunity to work with really motivated young people who share the same values as myself and who are eager to see a change in the township where many of us where born, this was very evident in how many of us gave their time to the Winter School without asking much questions but joined in with the heart to help, for me it was two weeks of being inspired and motivated whilste running around like a headless chicken! lol
Trust me tutors if it was not for you guys, Nyanga Winter School would not have been a success!!!!
And ofcoz WE WON!!!
At last… we’ve been threatening for a while to step up the non-academic aspect of Ivory Park’s Saturday IkamvaYouth sessions and we were able to take our first step in this direction on Saturday as Danny Naidoo led the learners through one of the fundamental components of improving one’s personal effectiveness: GOAL SETTING.
Danny presented a step-by-step account of what this might entail and spoke about identifying goals for one’s life and the resilience and perseverance that is essential for achieving these goals. Over the next few weeks we’ll be looking to build on this goal setting framework and provide opportunities for Ikamvanites to identify the areas they most want to target in their own lives.
To a large extent we are using these sessions as an experimental opportunity to identify where the learners find value with a non-academic focus. If you are interested in contributing in this area then find the branch nearest to you and get in touch. Basically if you have a talent or a gift that you’d like to share that is something other than tutoring then why not try it out.
So to prospective artists, creative types, life coaches, motivational speakers, drama fundi’s, etc – come join us.
Five Ikamvanites had the opportunity to visit the Virginia Air Show courtesy of Southern African Women in Aviation (SAWA). Capt. Refilwe Ledwaba, a helicopter pilot with the SAPS, invited 5 girls with good marks in Maths and Physical Science and an interest in aviation to participate in this programme. SAWA plans to partner with IkamvaYouth KZN to expose more learners to careers in aviation. The learners that qualified for the programme were: Fortunate Chinogurayi and Kalavani Perumal who are both in grade 10 at Bonella Secondary School, Sthembile Ngidi (Grade 10 Wiggins Secondary School) and Nontobeko Mkhize and Nomfundo Khumalo grade 11 from Tholulwazi Secondary School. They were accompanied by Nombuso Mthiyane who is a Physics tutor with Ikamva.
“The Girl/Fly programme is where we identify school girls that are interested in Aviation.We expose them to different careers within the industry, assist with the application process and also source sponsorship for their training.We also assist in the applications for the SAA cadette programme, South African Air Force and a lot more aviation companies, said Ledwaba about the programme.
SAWA will speak to all Ikamvanites about opportunities in aviation as well as arrange for them to spend half a day with Air Traffic Controllers, Engineers and Pilots on the job.
In the photograph (l-r) Air Force pilot Zanele, Fortunate, Capt. Ledwaba, Sthembile, Nomfundo, Kalavani, Nombuso and Nontobeko.
CG – Career Guidance
By Luyanda Kota
Winter Schools seems to be dominated by Career Guidance after tutoring to some extent that tutoring on its own is a form of career guidance because working towards any career requires consciousness about marks and entrance requirements. We kicked started this with Allan Gray giving a workshop about the scholarships that they offer. This was very important as we hoping that at least one Ikamvanite would obtain this scholarship.
This offered Entrepreneurship workshop to our grade 12s and we are hoping that some of our learners will be entrepreneurs one day and grow the economy while giving much needed job opportunities to the wider youth that is predominantly unemployed.
We also had study methods by Ginia and we know how important it is for our learners to add on their tips of studying. Last but not least we had Mentors meeting their mentees. We envisaged that mentors will be speaking to the mentees about their careers and where they are interns of making plans for the year after matric. We also hoped that they Mentors will have some material about bursaries but that was not possible and we will need to make sure that they get this info soon.
Lloyd Lungu