Tuesday 24 July was an exciting day for the Ebony Park learners as they continued in the spirit of Mandela Month by giving back to their community. “Charity begins at home,” most learners said, whilst they decided on where exactly in the community they would spread the Mandela Month spirit.
Our Ikamvanites decided to give back by going to a Nursery School called Mission House located on the same premises as IkamvaYouth. The afternoon was filled with different activities including cleaning the house, decorating and painting the play areas. The principal of the School, Mrs Lindiwe Nxusa, was so overwhelmed with gratitude that all she could do was hug everyone close to her. She has encouraged our Ikamvanites to continue with all the great work.
Mandela Day is a call to action for individuals – for people everywhere – to take responsibility for changing the world into a better place, one small step at a time, just as Mr Mandela did. We are all determined to play our part in making South Africa a better place for all.
It’s almost becoming a yearly ritual but once again Ikamvanites feature on the Mail and Guardian’s list of 200 Young South Africans.
This year two more Ikamvanites have been honoured:
- Thobela Bixa (Former IkamvaYouth learner and now IkamvaYouth Board Member)
- Andrew Barrett (Co-founder of IkamvaYouth Gauteng and Siyakhula Education Foundation)
Last year, three ikamvanites were featured on the 2011 M&G list:
Last year we said we could barely wait for our first cohort of ex-learners to make the list and this year Thobela has started what we expect to become a trend. Onwards and upwards.
Five International interns are at IkamvaYouth centres (Ebony Park and Ivory Park) in Gauteng for the next six weeks. Four of the interns are from India and one is from The Czech Republic and they have already begun to actively interact with the Ikamvanites in Gauteng. The Ikamvanites are excited to learn about the interns’ different cultures and it became evident after the Saturday tutoring session that the learners all wanted to be around our new visitors.
The interns are currently involved in helping to organise Winter School, cataloguing books in the library, tutoring and mentoring the learners.
IY partnered with an organisation called AIESEC which made the arrival and participation of these interns possible. AIESEC is the world’s largest youth-run led organisation. It is focused on providing a platform for youth leadership development. AIESEC offers young people the opportunity to participate in international internships, experience and participate in a global learning programme.
Our new interns are moving around with the motto, “Each one – teach one,” and they believe that this is a good platform for them to empower youths in South Africa.
Click the image to watch:
IkamvaYouth programmes are provided to the township youth at no cost. The learners are expected to commit themselves so as to improve their results in school. The Ikamvanites in Gauteng (Ivory Park and Ebony Park) have gone beyond being just beneficiaries of the Ikamva programmes, to giving back to the community. The idea of Ikamva Cares, an initiative to give back to the community, was suggested during the 2011 Winter School.
On the 26th of May, the Gauteng Ikamvanites, in partnership with Tzu Chi Foundation embarked on a heart touching act of kindness to help an elderly woman in the Ivoty Park community. The elderly woman is known to be staying on her own for the past 12years, with no track of any of her relatives. The community members have made several attempts to have the elderly woman removed from the community. The elderly woman has developed mental health problems, and she finds herself gathering wood, brocken equipment, bones, rugs and empty containers, thus filling the house and the yard with dirty. The children in the community have labelled her a witch, because she uses a ‘vampire-like’ doll to scare them away when they tease her. Lots of rates were breeding in her house and yard, and the smell of dirty and dead rates was unpleasant to the neighbours. But she would not allow anyone set foot on her yard, which was all heaps of rubble gathered over many years.
The Ikamvanites braved the smell and the dirty to clean the house and the yard. It took at least 3hrs for the Ikamvanites and Tzu Chi volunteers to clean the house and yard, with the heap of rubble almost blocking the street. The rubble truck had to make 3loads to clear the rubble, besides the 4 loads which the Tzu Chi volunteers had cleared the previous day. The Ikamvanites were so excited they had something to give to others. The community marvelled at the learners’ act of kindness, and one of the members noted that the grown-ups in the community had failed the elderly woman, but the Ikamvanites came to her rescue from the stinking atmosphere she was living in. The community member went on to say that what the Ikamvanites had done was not only for the elderly woman, but for the whole community, citing that the rubble was a pollution to the neighbourhood, as rats were spreading to the neighbours from the elderly woman’s house. Tzu Chi Foundation has plans to demolish the almost collapsing house, and avail a new house for the elderly woman.
This is just the beginning of many such acts of kindness by Ikamvanites to give back to the community.
“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.” ? Mother Teresa
About 40 Grade 10 learners from both the Ebony Park and Ivory Park branches in Gauteng attended the Hip2b2 Innovation Challenge Introduction Event. The focus of the event was to spark the interest of learners in Maths and Science and they were told that their innovation could win them the ” SA Young Innovator of the year award.”
Maths, Science and Technology related topics where presented to the learners in a fun, interesting and relevant way. It was a fun-filled afternoon event with activites, team challenges and videos introducing learners to the world of innovation, science and engineering. Learners were given guidance on how maths and science lay foundations or building blocks for careers in the fields of innovation, technology, healthcare, safety and transport.
HIP2B² has partnered with 3M, a diversified technology company serving customers and communities with innovative products and services and industry leaders in innovative solutions for everyday life, and our learners got to see how exciting maths and science can be.
Our learners are geared up and ready to show the world how they can contribute to their communities positively.
Lloyd Lungu