Ivory Park | IkamvaYouth

Ivory Park’s Strategic Planning Weekend Report

The Ivory Park branch of IkamvaYouth held our very first (inaugural) Strategic Planning Weekend (SPW) recently with a view to getting to know each other better and planning the rest of the year ahead. The weekend was an excellent opportunity for volunteers, tutors and learner representatives to explore a little deeper what it means to be an Ikamvanite and how to make sure that the values we say we represent spill over into our actions.

Download the full report here.

For many the weekend was an excellent opportunity to dig deeper into the IkamvaYouth goals and the core mission to use the opportunuties created by education to help township school learners help themselves and others out of poverty. The co-founder of IkamvaYouth, Joy Olivier, came up from Cape Town to lead a number of the workshops around how we make sure we maintain the low cost high impact model of IkamvaYouth.

The two biggest highlights of the weekend included the election of the Ivory Park Branch Committee for 2011 and this was capped off with a visit from the Minister of Basic Education Ms. Angie Motshekga.

More photos of the weekend are up on our facebook page, you can visit www.facebook.com/IkamvaYouthGauteng.

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Minister of Basic Education visits Ivory Park Strategic Planning Weekend

The Minister of Basic Education Ms Angie Motshekga visited our Strategic Planning Weekend and sat in on one our group discussion sessions.

Ms Motshekga praised all the IkamvaYouth volunteers around the country who give back so selflessly to the community and who carry the desire to improve the circumstances of our IkamvaYouth learners. In light of the recently launched Bill of Responsibilities, Ms Motshekga said she is greatly encouraged by organisations like IkamvaYouth who are making a real and valuable contribution to our society.

Ms Motshekga left “impressed” and “inspired” and promised to continue the conversation. We now look forward to the future with greater confidence and the promise of greater coollaboration.

More photos available www.facebook.com/IkamvaYouthGauteng.

Nashua Titans Visit IkamvaYouth Ivory Park

Cricket fever was at an all time high at the Ivory Park IkamvaYouth Centre as Neotel launched the Community Internet Cafe in partnership with our friends at Siyakhula. Ikamvanites participated in the festivites and were joined by the Nashua Titans’s Jacques Rudolph, Roelof van der Merwe, Henry Davids, Farhaan Behardien, Heino Kuhn, Ethy Mbhalati, David Wiese and the Bizhub Team Cyclists’ Lynn Torp, Catherine Williamson and Yolandi du Toit to celebrate the event.

A massive thank you to Neotel for an awesome day and the excitement of which was reflected in the response from the community to Neotel’s generous donation of computers, printers, scanners and internet access to the centre and people of Ebony Park and Ivory Park. Our friends at the Siyakhula Computer School aim to inspire students to broaden their knowledge and increase their chances of entry into the working world and this will be all the more easier with the installation of 10 computers, unlimited access to the web, as well as computer lessons so that Siyakhula remains a place of hope and inspiration.

The Nashua Titans themselves also got a chance to “test-drive” the internet café and were taught a thing or two by some of the local community members who have been attending the computer courses on offer at Siyakhula. They then proceeded to take on the Ikamvanites in a 10 minute aside soccer games, mingling with each other amid a lots of physical activity.

Also in attendance was Carol Manana of SABC Sport, Giant Leap, Medi-IQand the favorites of the day Akhumzi and Cindy of Yo-TV who stole the show as everybody wanted a piece of them. Be sure to watch the Big Breakfast show on SABC 1 on Saturday 12th..

One of SA’s top 5 cyclists, Yolandi du Toit was impressed by what she experienced,

“This is not just some passing campaign, this is here to stay, improve people’s lives and truly make a difference […] the people of Ebony Park and Ivory Park have secured an opportunity to better their education and skills.”

Considering the day was dedicated to education and enhancing one’s skills, the sports celebrities were given a chance to showcase their skills and expertise with workspace specialists, Giant Leap who kindly donated nearly 100 soccer balls. These were put to good use by the players and community members in the keenly contested sporting challenges. Alongside this were other fun fitness activities hosted by leading sports equipment suppliers, Medi IQ with hurdles, hoola-hooping and bouncing balls. Titans captain, Jacques Rudolph had the following to say:

“I think that the set up here is fantastic and that the people of Ebony Park and Ivory Park are both fortunate and grateful for all that they have on their doorstep. I encourage other corporates to get involved in their local communities, as it is actually very easy to make a significant difference.”

In her address to the community, Pumi Sithole of Neotel expressed their desire as an organisation to bring about change and positively influence the next generation of leaders. Furthermore, Neotel also donated an overhead projector and screen to the centre in addition to the centre’s current internet café.

“If we can begin by making a positive impact on the development of each community – no matter how big or small that development is, the prospects for this country will be unlimited”, affirmed Pumi.

It’s another goal scored for Siyakhula, IkamvaYouth and Neotel with the successful internet empowerment of the surrounding community! You can be sure that the Ikamvanites will benefit tremendously from the internet now readily avaialble to them

More photos of the day are available to view here.

Written in part by Caroline Malan from MSCSPORTS.

IkamvaYouth Coming to a TV Near You

Joe gets his showbiz on with the TalkSA crew.

Be sure to tune your TV sets into SABC 2 on Tuesday at 11AM as Joe and crew from Ivory Park make their TV debuts on Talk SA.

Talk SA is developing content around the theme of Nation Building and features IkamvaYouth in the third segment.

After much careful and considered deliberation Joe is prepared to auction his autograph to the highest bidder. Failing which, if you’d prefer to simply make a donation you can follow the instructions here.

Alternatively, VOLUNTEER!

🙂

Ivory Park Branch hosted Dr Becky of CIHM

IkamvaYouth and SiyakhulaComputerSchool hosted guests from LeedsUniversityBusinessSchool (CIHM)

The University of Leeds Centre for Innovation in Health Management (CIHM) is pioneering innovation in health and public service management systems. A group of social entrepreneurs, community leaders, health system leaders, academics from Asia, Africa, Europe and USA visited IkamvaYouth and our sister project SiyakhulaComputerSchool. The primary purpose was to help their international network develop a shared way of understanding how systems work and evolve in order to improve their collective capacity to support value driven change around the world…

We took our visitors to Philani Support Group, Tumelo Home for the Disabled Children, IvoryParkMethodistChurch, Lord Khanyile Youth Centre and drove them around Ebony and IvoryPark and unfortunately out time was up before we could take then to the local Chisa Nyama called Imbizo Busy Corner. The day was ended in style with a dinner at Troyville Hotel, where guests were dinned and wined until late hours of the night. I had an hour to accept an envelop from Dr Becky, as a gift to the organization. The time of goodwill is just around the corner, I will be waiting for more envelops to come, keep them coming!

Schneider-Electric light up young minds

A very big THANK YOU to Schneider-Electric – the global energy specialists – from a very excited group of Ivory Park Ikamvanites as staff from Schneider-Electric spent the afternoon with our learners and awarded awesome gifts to our top attending Ikamva-KNIGHTS!

After a presentation on Schneider-Electric and some insight into the multitude of career opportunities available to young motivated learners leaving school, we heard from Schneider-Electric staff who shared their personal career stories and experiences in the working world.

It’s easy to see that Schneider-Electric is a company specialising in energy management as the energy levels grew quite palpably as awards were made for learners based on their levels of attendance over the past year. Learners with the best attendance each received scientific calculators and a stationery pack in recognition of their commitment and dedication. Those learners who made the minimum 75% attendance criteria also received very cool stationery packs for their efforts too.

What’s more, Schneider-Electric purchased Mindset teaching DVDS to help with revision across a range of school subjects in grades 10-12. These DVDs will be sure to come in extremely handy as learners try to get to grips with sections of the curriculum they are struggling with. We look forward to the queues of learners lining up to work with the DVDs as they seek to improve their understanding.

Once again… a very big debt of gratitude to Schneider-Electric for a memorable afternoon and for enabling us to recognise the dedication of learners who truly are ‘taking their future’s into their hands’.