Saturday the 26th of January 2013 was a very special day for IkamvaYouth Gauteng as we opened our doors to new applications for the year. Open Day for both branches in Gauteng were jointly held at Ebony Park and it was exciting to see over 600 learners in attendance. The new applicants were all eager to see what IkamvaYouth had to offer and how they would be assisted to improve their marks.
The day started off with the District Coordinator, Patrick Mashanda, explaining what IkamvaYouth was all about and how IkamvaYouth would assist the learners within the community. Many of our supporters including ABI, Tzu Chi Foundation, Advtech, Mindset Network, ERM, EOH, Thoughtworks were present cheering all the learners on to take responsibility for their future and improve their marks.
(The Tzu Chi Foundation Team)
A prize giving ceremony immediately followed and all learners with over 80% attendance for 2012 were awarded certificates of achievement and the Grade 12’s with distinctions were recognised. Ntebaleng Morake, a Grade 12 with 4 distinctions, said a few words to thank everyone who supports IkamvaYouth and also encouraged learners to know that they too could excel at school.
(Ntebaleng Morake receiving her award)
Loads of fun ended the day off with donations of cokes, a DJ and music from ABI and pies from King Pie.
(Pies from King Pie being prepared for the aspiring Ikamvanites)
We are ready to change some lives this year, are you?
My name is Rhondashein Ntebaleng Morake and this is my story.
I grew up in the dusty township streets of Kaalfontein Midrand. My mother, being part a generational cycle of domestic workers in my family, sacrificed a lot of things of things to enable me to escape this cycle and have better opportunities. She infused me with pride and dignity and allowed me to dream bigger than our two room rented shack. Having a strong work ethic and being intrigued by history, law and politics, I took the first step of rejuvenating myself by joining IkamvaYouth Gauteng.I perceive education as a pre-requisite for sustainable development and that is why I decided to join IkamvaYouth. Education is the foundation of every society and an essential element to build a secure livelihood. It is the only thing that can catapult me, a daughter of a domestic worker and transform me to make gigantic impacts in our country and continent, by stimulating entrepreneurship, nourishing education and tackling crime through my desired career path (Law and Politics).
IkamvaYouth helped me academically and made me a strong academic student. Through its help, I was able to be in the academic top 5 in my school and be awarded the Academic Excellence Award for Grade 12, 2012 by Tsosoloso Ya Afrika High School. I was recently selected to part of be part of the Urban Transformers 2012-2013 by Rethink Leadership as I am inspired by ethical leadership and I speak up in favour of the voiceless. I have also managed to get 4 Distinctions at Matric (2012) and this is a dream come true for me. The fact that I got such good results means that my future has taken a completely different route and my mother no longer has to work as a domestic worker for much longer.
Although my mother is financially disadvantaged, I want to study BA Law with Political Science, Philosophy and International Relations at the University of Cape Town or the University of the Witwatersrand. When I wrote this article about myself, I realised that I aspire to represent the best of Africa’s produce for she is not destitute nor cursed or relegated to occupying the position of orphan continent. I have a clear vision of where I am going, for I have invested in educating myself in preparation to make myself, community, country and continent a success.
My dream is to one day be the President of the Republic of South Africa and the Secretarial General of the United Nations. I want to thank IkamvaYouth for helping me to work towards my dreams.
(Ntebaleng Morake on the left, standing next to Asanele Swelindawo, also a holder of 3 distictions, on the right)
Once an Ikamvanite, always an Ikamvanite!
Proud Ikamvanite: Ntebaleng Morake
On the 17th November Ivory Park Branch hosted its 3rd Parents Meeting at its branch. This event marked the official establishment of a parent representative for the branch committee. Two parents volunteered their time and commitment to represent parents at the committee.
There was a huge turnout from the parents and a total number of 61 parents attended. The total number includes parents of newly recruited learners and this gave parents an overview of what IkamvaYouth is all about.
Parents shared their satisfaction and were lost for words in giving thanks to Ikamva for the difference they see in the learner’s reports. In addition, a parent shared the difference in behaviour from her son who has now gone off the streets as a result of the programme because he now has something constructive to do with his time.
Another parent shared the significant improvement in his two daughter’s marks, which have now improved and expressed amazement in this regard.
This went to show the impact Ikamva has on the learners, not only educationally but also psychosocially and it has bought the IY team at Ivory Park much pleasure in hearing such testimonials directly from parents.
We wish to express our gratitude to all the parents who attended and those who excused themselves in advance for working together to make the branch work and working together for the learner’s future. We look forward to a fruitful relationship with the parents.
Amidst the scorching mid-week weather of Johannesburg, around 50 volunteers from the IkamvaYouth Gauteng branches, Ebony Park and Ivory Park, gathered for their annual year-end celebratory outing at Zoo Lake. This was the first time that the two Gauteng branches merged for a volunteer appreciation event organized by IkamvaYouth. The beautiful park had scenery which most viewed as an appropriate setting. In attendance were National Co-ordinator Zamo Shongwe, Gauteng Regional Co-ordinator Patrick Mashanda, Branch Co-ordinators Nyasha and Mbali with assistants, Bongani and Modjadji.
The volunteers immediately used the opportunity to get to know each other through conversations, which often turned into heated debates, games and activities. Some of the activities showed obvious competitiveness and team work while others were just plain fun. Proceedings got underway as fire was prepared for a meaty braai. A delightful lunch was served thereafter coupled with snacks and drinks.
The day had its usual share of addresses, though brief, from Patrick and Zamo who both reiterated the important role that the volunteers play at IkamvaYouth and conveyed their gratitude for the self-less contributions made by the tutors throughout the year. They both touched on the key role that the volunteers play in making the IkamvaYouth vision, a national sensation by 2030.
The day concluded with awards from the Ebony Park branch, which were voted for by the learners and volunteers. The first awards were for the most contributing tutors, which went to Hlengiwe Radebe, Ntabelang Matjee, Gregory Behrens and Talent Mzili. The award for best tutor went to Hlengiwe Radebe whereas the award for leadership went to Talent Mzili.
On behalf of the IkamvaYouth Gauteng Branch volunteers, many thanks to everyone who made the day possible, we truly felt the appreciation. Here’s to many more years of the IkamvaYouth movement!
On Saturday the 27th October IkamvaYouth Ivory Park Branch hosted the presence of Devendri Pillay of African Bank. Devendri is the African Bank representative assigned to the Ivory Park branch, and is also a mentor to one of our learners at the Ebony Park branch.
Devendri addressed the learners and left our hearts warm and very humbled. She expressed that African Bank invests in the learner’s education because it believes in them and it believes in their potential. She also shared hardships that may occur along the way, those are to be treated as life lessons and learners shouldn’t despair. One day they will look back and appreciate those hardships as building blocks.
What stood out the most was a quote from the African Bank CEO which is as follows: Impossible = I’m possible. This basically translates that if you put an apostrophe between the” I” and the “M” what results is “I-AM-POSSIBLE”. Learners exposed to empowering environments are more likely to be empowered individuals; and Devendri has helped create such an environment for our learners by inspiring them to keep pushing regardless.
The learners, tutors as well as staff are humbled by people that grace us and continue to inspire our spaces. A Big Thank You to African Bank for the dedication and investing in our youth’s education.
30 ikamvanites from Gauteng attended the HIP2B2 3M Innovation challenge final held on the 18 of October 2012. It was addressed by the Honourable Minister of Science and Technology Mr Dave Hannekom and other relevant stakeholders including SAAST,SAWS and SABC’s top current affairs journalists.
The Innovation challenge is about exposing learners to having a scientific approach to things and life in general (identifying a problem, identify scientific methods and resources to addressing the problem and finally getting learners to create and design models).
Unfortunately, none of our learners made it to the finals, but we take pride in our fellow school Maphutha Secondary School, who represented Johannesburg East District 9 as well as the entire Gauteng Province and had the opportunity to participate in the competition.
Let us continue encouraging our learners to enter such competitions so that they improve their experimental learning and academic exploring!!
Lloyd Lungu