Do you know what you want to do after Matric?
This is a hard decision, one that requires a lot of information and careful consideration, but IkamvaYouth and Equal Education are here to help. We would like to invite you to our 2012 Careers Indaba.
Come join us on the 14 September 2012 in the Zolani Centre in Nyanga (across the road from the Nyanga bus and taxi rank), and is open to grades 8-12.
Address:
The Zolani Centre,
Sithandatu Avenue,
Nyanga
7750
Directions to Zolani Centre
From Cape Town city centre:
Get on to the N2 toward the Cape Town Airport and Somerset West.
At junction 18 take right on to Borcherds Quarry Road (signposted to Nyanga/M22)
Follow this road down to the T- junction at the taxi rank and take a left on to Sithandatu Avenue
The Zolani Centre is on your left immediately and you can turn into the car park straight after the first set of robots.
The purpose of the Careers Indaba is to expose you to new opportunities, provide information about various study options, learnerships and volunteer programs, resources and support structures. In addition the Careers Indaba will offer workshops on CV writing, interview techniques and personal development. These are skills you will need wherever your path takes you!
Why should I come?
Whether you want to continue your studies, start working; find out about on the job training these choices require information and planning. Alternatively do you want to apply for a volunteer program or internship? It is important to start investigating your options now. At the Careers Indaba you will be able to talk directly to the people who are there to guide you in the right direction.
What are my options?
1/ Continue your studies: Do you want to become a teacher, doctor, electrician, scientist, a lawyer, hairdresser, accountant or nurse? All these positions require you to study further. At the Careers Indaba you will be able to discuss your options for universities, colleges, and Further Education Training (FET colleges)
2/ Working & on-the-job training: Do you want to make your own way and be an entrepreneur? Find our what it involves running your own business or learn while working through learnership programmes. At the Careers Indaba you will be able to find out about these options.
3/Volunteering, Internships and Gap Year Programmes: Do you want to spend some time deciding what your next step is, or getting to know yourself and the world about you a little better? Do you want to give back to your community or volunteer and gain valuable experience in a specific field? The Careers Indaba will give you the opportunity to find out more about this.
Spread the word, looking forward to seeing you all there!
Every IkamvaYouth programme is aimed at ensuring that every Ikamvanite ‘becomes something’ through education. It is so humbling and encouraging to realise that our sponsors are prepared to give more than just financial assistance for the best of Ikamvanites. African Bank staff has demonstrated genuine commitment and interest to mentor 6 of our Ebony Park grade 12s.
The mentoring programme provides Ikamvanites in grade 12 with the opportunity to get one-on-one support from individuals who are in tertiary, or have been through tertiary. Such support includes ensuring the Ikamvanite accesses post school opportunities as well as inspiration and motivation. The Mentor’s personal experience through tertiary education provides valuable inspiration for the township learner to realise the possibilities of success through hard work, and how education can emancipate them from poverty.
the_joy_of_mentoring_ikamvanites.pdf
The Mentors from African Bank met their Mentees for the first time on Saturday the 4th of August, and spent an hour getting to know each other, as well as signing the mentorship agreement. The mentors and mentees chose to sit in the sun, in a relaxed but confidential setting. The immediate proof of the effectiveness of the mentorship programme was that one of the Mentors offered to pay for her Mentee to apply at Tshwane Universty of Technology (TUT). The Mentors and the Mentees agreed to give the best to the relationship. The Mentors marvelled at how positive all the mentees were about the mentorship programme. The Mentors made a commitment to bring more of their colleagues to become mentors.
While African Bank is funding our Ivory Park branch, which will only have the first group of grade 12s next year, the Mentors are so committed that they did not mind mentoring at a branch that their company is not funding. So, it is giving more than just financial support. They are giving to a good cause. Many thanks to Devendri Pillay (African Bank representative) and her colleagues for stepping in to avail the much needed mentoring service to the learners!
I was very honoured to be invited by Capitec Bank and Argo Publishers to participate in a panel discussion together with some amazing women who’re doing extraordinary work in education. On 4th July we met at the Sandton Convention centre to discuss how to really make a difference to the learners in our schools, by sharing, combining and collaborating across all the different systems to make a systemic impact. My fellow panelists were:
The minutes of our discussion are available here.
The conversation was a great opportunity to reflect on the power of collaboration, and to gain a better understanding of effective ways in which to collaborate. I shared some of the experiences IkamvaYouth and Capitec have had in working together towards common goals.
IkamvaYouth was initially entirely run and funded by volunteers, and then our early years were funded mostly by foundations; many of which continue to support our work years on. In the past 2-3 years, corporate south Africa has begun to take notice of our work, as the people who come through our program are the kinds of people they want to hire. In addition to being academic achievers, ikamvanites live the values of giving back/paying-it-forward, and have gained valuable work experience through being branchcom members.
These partnerships provide huge scope for innovative collaboration beyond funding, and in addition to multi-year financial support, Capitec is assisting IkamvaYouth in the following ways:
* Programme delivery
Capitec staff have enthusiastically become involved in working directly with our learners. During the recent winter schools, they held financial literacy training programmes for all the Western Cape branches, and will be participating in the upcoming Careers Indaba.
* Measuring impact
The realiability of learners’ school reports at some schools can be problematic, and accessing this data is often challenging (although it’s illegal to withhold school reports due to unpaid school fees, many schools continue to do so). It’s thus quite tricky to know how our learners are doing until they write the national exams. Capitec has stepped in to address this challenge by opening up the assessments they use for recruitment, which measure literacy, numeracy and problem-solving abilities.
* Enabling access to opportunities
Capitec has a progressive policy whereby they hire people from the communities where their branches are. As they’re bringing banking to under-served communities which are typically under-resourced, they’re struggling to find prospective employees who’re sufficiently numerate and literate.
One of our Makhaza tutors, Unathi Smile, wrote the Capitec assessments and made it all the way through to becoming recruited! Capitec has also awarded bursaries to cover grade 10s’ school fees at IkamvaYouth’s feeder schools.
* Infrastructure support
As Capitec upgrades its computer equipment, they’ve set about refurbishing and delivering them to IkamvaYouth branches to enable the establishment of new labs and expansion of existing ones.
* Strategic support:
Capitec has scaled a simple, smart solution to reach communities in need. Sbusiso Khumalo has joined IkamvaYouth’s board of directors, and is providing advice and guidance to enable us to scale and meet the demand for our services while still maintaining our track record of results.
These are just some of the examples where smart, easy collaboration leads to greatly enhanced reach and impact. The challenges presented by the crisis in education are far too large and looming for one organisation, company or even Government Department to overcome alone. A large-scale collaborative effort is called for, and IkamvaYouth is greatly appreciative of the combined efforts of our donors and partners which are making great strides and changing lives.
The last day of winter school for the Ebony and Ivory Park branches was filled with mixed emotions. We were sad about the end of winter school, uplifted by the amazing contributions at the talent show, and overwhelmed by a rather daunting part of the programme: “Andrew’s Farewell”. Andrew has been a key ikamvanite since 2009 and his contribution has been so significant that it’s really rather impossible to say goodbye. We have this saying “once an ikamvanite, always an ikamvanite”, and so, rather than bidding Andrew farewell, we spent some time thanking and celebrating him.
Andrew and I first met in 2008, when he became interested in our Operation Fikelela curriculum and its potential use for Siyakhula. He was interested in the IY model, decided to pilot it, and then founded IkamvaYouth Gauteng in 2009. His selfless commitment to realising his vision for the Ebony Park community has been relentless; he has been at every single Saturday tutoring session for three and a half years, and has built not only two branches in Gauteng, but played a key role on natcom, informing who we are and how we do things, and enabling us to become an organisation with a national footprint.
Together with the many learners, tutors and supporters whose efforts he’s inspired and coordinated along the way, Andrew has made an incredible impact. In 2011, the Ebony Park branch achieved a 94% pass rate and 100% post school placement, with 45% at universities, and last year they reached a 100% pass rate and 83% access to tertiary.
Not only has Andrew’s work fundamentally changed the lives of the people he’s worked with, but he has established something that will keep on changing many lives. The individuals who were learners during Andrews time will become the tutors who will support more learners to reach similar heights.
But this work is not easy, and it’s this, even more than the outcomes that I want to thank Andrew for. Andrew has essentially been volunteering for IkamvaYouth all of this time. He has a full-time job running his own NGO, and has sacrificed massive amounts to create this beautiful home for all of us. And he even managed to study and win awards in addition to his two full time jobs! He has sweated the small stuff: filling out attendance, capturing data, making sandwiches and dealing with the un-fun aspects of this work. And he’s also been a visionary leader who’s inspired hundreds of people to change the world.
So I’m not going to say farewell. I know that our organisations will continue to collaborate and that ultimately we are still working together towards the same goal:
The fact that 2 million of the 2.8 million South Africans Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEETS) haven’t passed matric tells us something about how to fix this problem. What IkamvaYouth and Siyakhula are working towards is ensuring that young South Africans don’t become NEETS but rather IETS. (“Iets” means “something” in Afrikaans.)
So what IkamvaYouth and SEF and everyone in that room on the last day of winter school, led by Andrew, is doing, is ensuring that ikamvanites become iets; become something. Ikamvanites become something so great that very soon they can in turn help other learners to become something. And what ikamvanites are going to become and are becoming already, are the leaders of the country. Because the generations before us do not know how to fix this problem. The education crisis is so huge and so massive that they are scared by it. But we do know how to fix it. And instead of wringing our hands and talking about how we need to work together to fix things, we’re getting on with it.
That’s what Andrews been doing for the last 4 years, and, through SEF, is going to continue doing for the next many years, and so this isn’t a goodbye but a huge thank you. For your leadership, your volunteerism, your inspiration, your selflessness, for challenging us, for pushing us, and for sharing all you know with this amazing team of people who will continue with the amazing work you started.
Some day we may be mining our landfills for the resources we’ve buried. A scary fact presented to the learners of IY’s Chesterville on their Operation Clean Up which was
held on the morning of Thursday, 28 June.
This was a new initiative piloting in Winter School in an aide to get our learners to give
back to the community that they’ve grown up in ( majority if our learners either attend
school within the Chesterville area and/or live within the area – or surroundings )
Durban Solid Waste and Ethekwini Municipality’s Parks and Recreation played a
major role in making this day possible. Thursdays activities started with the learners
taking a walk through the Education & Waste Minimisation Mobile Training Centre –
a bus which travels around various schools and communities within the municipalities
educating society about waste management and recycling through joint collaborations
between the municipality, Engen and the Association of Waste Management.
Mr Njebo, who is in KwaZulu Natal’s head office of Waste Management delivered a talk
about recycling and gave learners ideas on household waste they can recycle.
After all this, learners and tutors were separated into various groups and it was time to
walk around Chesterville to help clean up the community. DSW kindly sponsored gloves
as well as plastic bags which we would use to collect all the waste we found along our
way.
Our first stop was the local hospice where learners cleaned outside the premises, the yard
and gardens. Thereafter we took a walk down towards the St Anthony’s Church’s mission amidst
the support and cheers of local community members.
Arriving at the mission, we were greeted by a Parks and Recreation truck which was
there to deliver the tools sponsored by the department which would be used to clean up
the yard.
Once again learners were separated into groups and cleaned around the yard of the
mission as well as clearing the yard of weeds.
Learners enjoyed clearing up the garden and we are looking forward to hopefully return
to plant a few vegetables for the abused and abandoned women and children which this
mission houses.
After our Operation Clean Up, Chesterville learners returned to DUT for academic
tutoring. At this time, Umlazi learners, who had started the morning in the classroom,
began their Operation Clean Up with a presentation from Zanele, from the DSW
education department. The presentation focused on various aspects such as awareness of
pollution, waste management, different disposal areas in KZN and what effect waste has
on the environment.
Zanele futher empasised the importance of “the 3 Rs” (Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle), in
combating the negative impact waste has on the environment.
Another important aspect which they touched on was the illegal dumping of waste
especially by our households when they miss the scheduled time of the municipal truck
picking up waste in the neighborhood.
After the insightful presentation, learners were taken to the beach, not to swim, but to
give back to their environment, by cleaning up the litter in the area.
Having Joy Olivier ( co-founder of IkamvaYouth ) and Zamo Shongwe ( IY’s National Coordinator ) join
The clean-up was an added treat for the learners. The amount of litter collected in the
few minutes that the learners were there (just under 30 minutes) was a real eye opener.
Learners really got to see just how bad the issue of pollution on our beaches actually is.
We hope that this is the start of a great initiative and that learners will be able to use all
the knowledge that they gained about taking care of their environment, within their daily
lives.
IkamvaYouth’s 2011 Annual Report is out and available here for download!
Many thanks to our super-talented designer Lynne Stuart, to Julia de Kadt for proofreading, and to everyone who contributed stories, quotes and photos. We love it, and hope that all the readers will too!
Ikamvanites got through some really rough times in 2011: our office was petrol-bombed, a devastating fire in Masiphumelele destroyed 1000s of homes, and learners spent a week rioting after their classmate was badly injured while beaten at school. 2011 was also a year of tragic loss: three heroes (Mphumzi Klaas, Nomzamo Kali and Dave Eadie) all passed away before their time, but not before they’d each made significant contributions to IkamvaYouth and South Africa at large.
There were some good times too: 560 ikamvanites (learners & volunteers) spent their holidays at one of the five winter schools (hosted by TSiBA, UWC, Masi library, DUT and SEF), and 426 learners achieved more than 75% attendance, three times a week, through all four terms. 100 tutors regularly spent their spare time tutoring at the five branches. The ikamvanites’ hard work paid off: 99% of learners in grades 8-11 passed onto the next grade, and 85% of our matrics passed (41% Bachelor, 39% Diploma passes). 69% of matriculants are at tertiary institutions, and 9% are in learnerships and/or employment.
IkamvaYouth’s track record of impressive results has led to some important and exciting attention. We were visited by the Minister of Basic Education (twice!) and mentioned in her budget speech; the Duchess of Cornwall popped in, and Jonathan Jansen inspired our learners at the Masi branch. We were featured in national media including Business Day, SAFM and SABC2 and MNet, made our own Live magazine, went to Slovenia and won a bunch of awards.
A key organisational objective for 2011 was consolidation, and despite the challenges, we’ve managed to achieve this; thanks to the support from our visionary donors. We ran our first-ever national strategic planning week (when many of us met the colleagues with whom we collaborate online on a daily basis in person for the first time); open-sourced our model through the ikamvanitezone (where you’ll find shared information and resources, how-to guides, tools & templates); had an independent evaluation conducted by Servaas van der Berg and his team of education economists, and grew our team.
Over the past year, IkamvaYouth has received 28 requests from communities in all provinces to establish more branches. And after our year of heads-down consolidation, we’re ready to step up and respond. 2012 has seen two new branches established: African- Bank-funded Ivory Park and ABI-funded Umlazi. Next on the horizon are Grahamstown and another two Gauteng branches. We’ve also begun thinking about ways to generate income and sustainably scale expansively, without entirely relying on donor funding in the future.
Ultimately though, IkamvaYouth’s sustainability lies with the ikamvanites. During our first few years, people would often tell us sagely that “initiatives that rely completely on volunteers aren’t sustainable”. We don’t get that anymore. And indeed, ikamvanites have shown that not only is the model sustainable due to the learners becoming tutors, and the tutors being so committed, but that volunteers produce results in contexts where few can.
We invite you to get involved in whatever way, and be a part of the change we need in many more communities throughout the country.
We hope you’ll enjoy the 2011 Annual Report multi-media experience we’ve curated for you, and make the most of the hyperlinks providing detail behind the headlines to youtube clips, blog posts and reports.
Thanks again to every indivdual who played your part in enabling all that was achieved and overcome in 2011, and to those who’re boosting us to ramp it up for 2012!
Lloyd Lungu